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Jury acquits 3 officers in death of black man who told them he couldn’t breathe

Published:Saturday | December 23, 2023 | 12:08 AM
Manny Ellis’ mother, Marcia Carter-Patterson, second from right, is escorted out of court by family attorney James Bible, right, and other family members after Pierce County Judge Bryan Chushcoff reads the verdict from the jury for the killing of Manny E
AP
Manny Ellis’ mother, Marcia Carter-Patterson, second from right, is escorted out of court by family attorney James Bible, right, and other family members after Pierce County Judge Bryan Chushcoff reads the verdict from the jury for the killing of Manny Ellis in Pierce County Superior Court Thursday, December 21, 2023 in Tacoma, Washington.

TACOMA (AP):

A jury cleared three Washington state police officers of all criminal charges Thursday in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a black man who was shocked, beaten and restrained face-down on a Tacoma sidewalk as he pleaded for breath.

Two of the officers – Matthew Collins, 40, and Christopher Burbank, 38 – had been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, while Timothy Rankine, 34, was charged with manslaughter. Their attorneys argued that Ellis died from a lethal amount of methamphetamine that was in his system as well as a pre-existing heart condition, not from the officers’ actions, and the jury found the three not guilty on all counts.

There was a gasp from the gallery when the first not-guilty verdict was read. Rankine sat forward in his seat and wiped his eyes, while Collins hugged his lawyer.

Matthew Ericksen, a lawyer representing the Ellis family, said it was hard to convey how devastating the verdict was for the family and community.

“The biggest reason why I personally think this jury found reasonable doubt is because the defence was essentially allowed to put Manny Ellis on trial,” Ericksen said via email. “The defence attorneys were allowed to dredge up Manny’s past and repeat to the jury again and again Manny’s prior arrests in 2015 and 2019. That unfairly prejudiced jurors against Manny.”

Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately return calls or emails from The Associated Press seeking comment. The Seattle Times quoted Collins’ attorney, Casey Arbenz, as saying the verdict was “a huge sigh of relief” and reflected that the jurors were willing to look beyond the video.

The officers “should never have been charged,” Arbenz said.

Ellis’ death became a touchstone for racial justice demonstrators in the Pacific Northwest, but it also coincided with the first U.S. outbreak of COVID-19 at a nursing home in nearby Kirkland and did not garner the attention that the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis did nearly three months later.

The trial, which lasted more than two months, was the first under a five-year-old state law designed to make it easier to prosecute police accused of wrongfully using deadly force.