After Osaka's win against Italy's Camila Giorgi in the second round of the US Open (the final score was 6-1, 6-2), she said that she doesn't think Elijah McClain's name "is very put out there compared to George Floyd or Breonna Taylor. For me, today was very special in the way that I wanted to represent him very well."
McClain was 23 when police, on Aug. 24, 2019 and in Aurora, CO, restrained him with a chokehold called a "carotid" at least two times, which restricts blood to the brain and causes someone to go unconscious (all chokeholds have since been banned in Aurora, and Colorado as a whole has banned chokeholds as well). McClain was walking home from a convenience store when someone called 911 on the man, saying that he "looked sketchy," was wearing a ski mask, and was waving his arms.
The carotid chokehold was used after police struggled to handcuff McClain, who was revealed after the fact to have chronic asthma. Paramedics then injected him with ketamine, a sedative. McClain went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died a few days later. Three officers involved were put on administrative leave, then reinstated, according to The New York Times. Read more about McClain here.
