TACOMA — Opening statements on Tuesday launched the Pierce County Superior Court trial of three Tacoma police officers charged in the suffocation death of a Black pedestrian in March 2020.
Manuel Ellis, 33, died from oxygen deprivation, an autopsy showed. He was Tased, choked, struck, handcuffed, hogtied, and sat and kneeled on by a series of officers while repeatedly stating that he couldn’t breathe.
Eyewitness videos of the officers struggling with Ellis, and a nearby home surveillance camera that captured audio of Ellis’ pleas that he couldn’t breathe, are expected to be central to the prosecution’s case. The Pierce County Medical Examiner ruled Ellis’ death a homicide.
Lawyers for Matthew Collins, 40, Christopher “Shane” Burbank, 38, and Timothy Rankine, 34, took aim at the high level of methamphetamine found in Ellis’ system as an alternative explanation for his death. Collins and Burbank are charged with second-degree murder; all three officers are charged with first-degree manslaughter. They have pleaded not guilty, are free on bail and remain on paid leave from the Tacoma Police Department.
Kent Liu from the Washington state Attorney General’s office challenged the truthfulness of Collins’ and Burbanks’ statements to detectives that Ellis was the aggressor. Instead, Liu said, they assaulted and sat on Ellis without justification. Liu said Rankine, who arrived as backup with Ellis already prone and hogtied, sat on his back for up to 10 minutes. Throughout the ordeal, Ellis pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.
“All three of these defendants knew Mr. Ellis couldn’t breathe” and stood by, Liu said.
Burbank’s lawyer, Brett Purtzer, countered that the high level of methamphetamine in Ellis’ system, and not the officers, killed him. He said Ellis was “screaming, violent and extremely high on methamphetamine.” Purtzer said the officers’ actions were justified and they should be found not guilty.
Opening statements will continue Tuesday afternoon, with witness testimony set to follow.
A jury of eight men and four women was seated Monday afternoon. The panel includes six white men, three white women, an Asian man, a Black man and a Black woman.
Collins and Burbank are white; Rankine is Asian. All three defendants are U.S. Army combat veterans; three of the white men on the jury also served in the military. The trial is expected to last into December.
This is the first trial to test a new police accountability law, Initiative 940, adopted by voters in 2018 and the state Legislature in 2019. The law removed a previous requirement that officers acted with malicious intent in order to be charged for hurting or killing someone on duty.
