Elijah McClain

This is how it started.  Elijah was walking home from the store:

Elijah McClain walking home from the store. He's wrapped up in a heavy coat because he was very slight/slender (5'6" tall and about 140#) and, on this particular night, very cold.  He IS wearing a face covering to keep warm

At the time, Elijah worked as a massage therapist in Aurora, Colorado.  On this particular night, he'd gone to a local convenience store to pick up an ice tea for his brother.  At 10:30 PM, Mountain Time, August 19, 2019, someone called 911 to report a suspicious person, "wearing a mask and waving his hands."  

Likely, he was waving his hands to keep warm... just a hunch.  The mask, again, to keep his face warm.
His sister later told the local news station there, he, "had anemia and would sometimes get cold."  Makes sense.
Police body-cam footage of the event didn't surface until late November 2019. Why?

On the footage, Elijah can be heard asking officers about why he is being stopped. He's in a choke-hold (a carotid hold - in order to cut off blood to the brain), tells them his house is right there.  He sobs, vomits and apologizes, saying, "I just can't breathe correctly."

These were the final moments of young Elijah McClain's brief life here on Earth.

Paramedics arrive, take Elijah to the hospital.  

En route, Elijah goes into cardiac arrest and he dies three days later.  

How does a walk to a convenience store on a chilly night in August turn into the death of another Black person? How does that happen?

 And this is how we will remember our young Elijah McClain:

Mural by Thomas Detour Evans