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A jury has acquitted a Denver-area police officer of manslaughter, following trial testimony that he put Elijah McClain in a neck hold before the Black man was injected with the powerful sedative ketamine by paramedics and died.

The acquittal came Monday in the second of three trials against first responders who were indicted by a grand jury in the 23-year-old massage therapist’s 2019 death. The charges came two years after McClain died and amid social justice protests nationwide in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others.

McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, left the courthouse Monday with a fist raised in the air. A supporter who accompanied her called the verdict “pathetic” and a sign that the justice system was not changing.

The first trial ended in a split verdict with one Aurora officer found guilty and another acquitted.

Jury selection in the final trial, against Paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Lt. Peter Cichuniec with the Aurora fire department, is scheduled to begin Nov. 17.

The Israeli army severed northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory and pounded it with airstrikes Monday, preparing for expected ground battles with Hamas militants in Gaza’s largest city and an even bloodier phase of the month-old war.

Already, the Palestinian death toll surpassed 10,000, the Health Ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said Monday. The ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. About 1,400 people in Israel have died, mostly civilians killed in the Oct. 7 incursion by Hamas that started the war.

The war has quickly become the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence since Israel’s establishment 75 years ago, with no end in sight as Israel vows to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities.

Megan Moosbrugger can be reached at moos6667@stthomas.edu.