An Aurora Police detective’s observations played a pivotal role in the dismissal of a Latino juror as two officers went on trial in the death of Elijah McClain, according to a newly unsealed court document.

That undercover officer told the judge in a closed-door proceeding that she overheard the man, identified only as Juror 14, say “odio la policia” – Spanish for “hate the police” – during a phone call in a courthouse hallway.

In that same session, held out of public view and shrouded in mystery, the man said he didn’t remember saying that but did not specifically deny that he did.

Adams County District Judge Mark Warner, who earlier concluded that defense attorneys improperly struck the man from the jury because of his race, ultimately decided to dismiss the man from the panel.

Opening statements began a few hours later with a largely white jury considering the case against two Aurora police officers indicted in the death of McClain, a 23-year-old Black man.

The sequence of events played out Sept. 20, during the final stages of jury selection for the racially and politically charged trial of Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt, two of the five first responders accused of wrongdoing in McClain’s 2019 death. Court officials declined that day to answer questions about what happened after the judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys left the courtroom and met privately for several hours.

In January, Colorado Public Radio filed a petition in court to unseal the transcript of the proceedings. Warner granted it Feb. 9.

Warner, who presided over all three criminal trials connected to McClain’s death, ordered one redaction from the 86-page transcript before its release: The identity of Juror 14.

The sequence of events that led to his dismissal played out in a jury room not accessible by the public and over the lunch hour behind the locked doors of Courtroom 402 at the Adams County Justice Center in Brighton, according to the transcript.

It saw both prosecutors from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and defense attorneys accuse the other side of improperly dismissing multiple jurors based on race.

The 86-page transcript details the situation that included the undercover investigator’s acknowledgement that she was gathering intelligence at the trial of two officers – both former colleagues. The undercover officer told the judge that during a break she was standing in a line outside a women’s restroom, with six or seven prospective jurors, when she overheard Juror 14 talking on the phone as he was within 5 or 6 feet of her.

The undercover officer told the judge she was at the trial to gather intelligence on potential protesters, noting that Aurora’s municipal courthouse was damaged during demonstrations in 2020.

Attorney Scott Robinson, a 9NEWS legal analyst, said he found the situation unusual and that he was particularly bothered that the undercover officer, by her own admission, was around prospective jurors.

“What troubles me is that if you’re in there as an undercover officer, you really have no business being in a line with jurors,” Robinson said. “That sounds a little bit like attempting to eavesdrop on conversations. … That kind of eavesdropping is really not consistent with the fair administration of justice.”

“We feel like this is a nonissue,” said Aurora Police spokesman Joe Moylan. “It was handled the day of.”

Moylan said the decision to assign an undercover officer to the courthouse was made by a supervisor in the department’s intelligence unit.

“The intelligence unit operates on its own and has the authority to make those kinds of decisions,” Moylan said.

Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment.

The Aug. 24, 2019, confrontation involving officers and McClain – and the man’s subsequent death – sparked outrage in the community.

The incident began when a 911 caller reported seeing a man with a mask who seemed “sketchy.” Officer Nathan Woodyard responded and confronted McClain on an Aurora street as McClain walked home from a convenience store carrying a plastic grocery sack containing three cans of tea and listening to music on ear buds.

Roedema and Rosenblatt joined Woodyard moments later, and the three of them physically subdued McClain.

During the struggle, Roedema told the other officers that McClain tried to grab Rosenblatt’s gun – an assertion that prosecutors repeatedly questioned. Rosenblatt and then Woodyard used a neck hold aimed at rendering McClain unconscious as they tried to take control of him.

After that, according to multiple medical experts, McClain vomited and inhaled some it, then suffered a series of problems, including low levels of oxygen and high levels of acid in his body.

McClain said repeatedly “I can’t breathe” before two paramedics, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, injected him with the sedative ketamine.

McClain’s heart stopped a short time later. Although paramedics successfully restored his pulse, he never regained consciousness and died three days later.

Roedema, 41, faces 14 months in jail and four years of probation after being convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault for his actions in McClain’s death.

He is expected to start serving the jail term March 22.

The same jury that found Roedema guilty acquitted Rosenblatt of all charges. A jury in a separate trial acquitted Woodyard of all charges. He later resigned from Aurora Police after being reinstated and receiving back pay.

In another trial, a jury convicted both paramedics of criminally negligent homicide and also found Cichuniec, the supervisor on the scene, guilty of second-degree assault.

Cichuniec is scheduled to be sentenced March 1. Cooper’s sentencing is set for April 26.

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