A Colorado paramedic is facing rare criminal charges after he sedated and restrained a man who had been arrested by police last year, “reckless acts” that led to the 36-year-old’s death, Boulder County’s district attorney announced Friday.

Paramedic Edward McClure, 54, was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and forgery in the December death of Jesus Lopez Barcenas, two days after he was taken into custody.

The criminal case comes nearly six years after Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, died after Aurora police restrained him and a paramedic injected him with the sedative ketamine. McClain’s death prompted a new state law that limited the way paramedics could use ketamine during police encounters in an attempt to prevent similar deaths.

McClure used a different drug, Droperidol, to sedate Barcenas, according to a police affidavit.

Barcenas was arrested by police officers from the Boulder and University of Colorado police departments on Dec. 27, 2024. Campus police officers responded to CU’s Center for Innovation and Creativity, at 1777 Exposition Drive, after a worker there reported that Barcenas was acting strangely.

When campus officers arrived, Barcenas was shouting about people dying inside the building and the building being on fire, according to a 30-page affidavit filed against McClure. Barcenas was hitting a fire alarm with his cellphone. The building was not on fire.

Campus police attempted to arrest Barcenas and put him in handcuffs at 8:26 p.m. A fight ensued, according to the affidavit, and the officers called Boulder police for help. One officer reported that Barcenas tried to grab the officer’s gun during the struggle. Officers eventually were able to handcuff Barcenas, according to the affidavit.

They called for two ambulances — one for an officer who’d hurt his ankle during the arrest, and one for Barcenas, who was still speaking nonsensically and yelling.

When American Medical Response paramedics arrived at 8:34 p.m., McClure spoke to Barcenas from about three feet away as officers continued to restrain the man. He did not touch Barcenas or ask the man how he was feeling. McClure also did not ask officers what happened, according to the affidavit.

After a brief conversation with Barcenas in which the man did not speak coherently, McClure injected Barcenas with 5 mg of Droperidol. Barcenas was handcuffed, restrained by police and lying on his stomach when McClure injected him through a hole in his pants, according to the affidavit.

The officers, McClure and an EMT put Barcenas on a gurney. They laid him on his stomach with his hands cuffed behind his back, then used additional restraints on his ankles and strapped seatbelt-like restraints across his body.

“Now let’s strap the crap out of him,” McClure said, according to the affidavit. He instructed the EMT with him to keep Barcenas in a prone position.

“Just keep him face-down, I don’t care,” McClure said, according to the affidavit. Transporting a handcuffed patient in that position is dangerous and forbidden by the ambulance company’s policy, according to the affidavit. A person restrained in a prone position is unable to safely exhale, which can cause carbon dioxide to rapidly rise in a person’s blood, which can lead to death.

Barcenas was put in the back of the ambulance at 8:46 p.m. At some point, prosecutors allege McClure placed a “spit sock” covering over Barcenas’ head, even though the man was not spitting on anyone.

By 8:55 p.m., the ambulance crew updated their status to an emergency because Barcenas suffered a heart attack. Two minutes later, McClure can be seen on a body-worn camera doing CPR on Barcenas. He did not recover.

Barcenas died two days later.

‘Tragic and untimely death’

The Boulder County Coroner’s Office found he died from “sudden cardiac arrest following a prolonged physical altercation and struggle, which included prone positioning and the use of restraints and a sedative,” according to the affidavit. The coroner’s office determined that “the toxic effects of methamphetamine contributed to his death.”

McClure was arrested Friday. He was booked into the Boulder County jail and then released after posting bail. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said in a news release Friday that he found the police officers’ use of force to be within the law during Barcenas’ arrest, but that McClure’s “reckless acts” led to the man’s death.

“The prone positioning, positioning of the gurney, and the use of the restraints and spit sock by Paramedic McClure is alleged to have caused the tragic and untimely death of Mr. Barcenas,” Dougherty wrote in a Friday letter that cleared the police officers of wrongdoing.

McClure is also accused of attempting to change his patient care reports in order to cover up his actions and being dishonest during interviews with his supervisors about the incident. He claimed that he could not take certain care steps in the ambulance because Barcenas was combative, when, in fact, the man was barely moving, according to the affidavit.

McClure was fired by American Medical Response on Dec. 30, 2024, according to the affidavit.

‘Virtually unheard of’

It’s extremely rare but not unprecedented for an emergency medical provider to be charged with crimes related to patient care, said Howard Paul, communications director for the Emergency Medical Services Association of Colorado.

“It’s virtually unheard of,” he said. “It’s extraordinarily rare.”

Emergency medical service providers across the country watched closely when two paramedics were charged with crimes in McClain’s 2019 death, he said.

One of the paramedics who handled McClain’s care was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and assault. A judge erased the paramedic’s five-year prison sentence just six months after it started.

McClain’s killing also renewed scrutiny around the term “excited delirium,” a disputed condition that describes someone exhibiting extreme agitation to the point where they are a danger to themselves and others. McClure underwent training on restraining combative patients in August 2024, according to the affidavit, though he denied going through that training during an interview with his supervisors — until he was shown his signature on a class roster.

“Oh yeah, that is the whole, ‘You can’t say ‘excited delirium’ or whatever training,” he said, according to the affidavit.