The three Tacoma, Washington police officers charged in the death of Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who died in March 2020 after saying, “I can’t breathe” while handcuffed and hogtied, were all found not guilty on Thursday.
According to the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office, Ellis died of hypoxia, a deficiency of oxygen, which caused his fatal respiratory arrest.
Police said they ran into Ellis while he was walking home and witnessed him pounding on a woman’s car window and trying to open the doors.
Ellis was then restrained on the ground, beaten, tased, and put in a spit mask, according to prosecutors. He was pronounced dead 40 minutes later by medical professionals.
Defense attorneys argued that Ellis died from high levels of methamphetamine in his system and ongoing heart complications.
Officers Matthew Collins, 40, Christopher Burbank, 38, and Timothy Rankine, 35, were charged with first-degree manslaughter. In addition, Collins and Burbank, the first officers to approach Ellis when they reportedly saw him reach for the door of a car as it passed through an intersection, were also charged with second-degree murder.
If convicted, they would have faced a maximum penalty of life in prison and a $50,000 fine.
“He was a human who deserved the same dignity that we all do,” special prosecutor Patricia Eakes of Washington’s Attorney General’s Office said during closing arguments. “He deserved to be treated with basic human dignity.”
She compared Ellis’ treatment to that of an animal, mentioning that Ellis was tied up with a hobble, a tool used by police to secure the legs and ankles of a suspect.
All three are still employed by the Tacoma Police Department and on paid leave. According to The Seattle Times, payroll records show that during the three years since Collins, Burbank and Rankine last worked, they have received around $1.5 million in salary and have collected hundreds of hours in vacation that the city will have to pay out if their employment is terminated.
The Tacoma police union told ABC News in a previous statement that the charges were a “politically motivated witch hunt.”
According to the outlet, the jury began discussing the case on Dec. 14, but they had to restart twice due to alternate jurors being requested. On Monday, a juror was marked unavailable “due to a family concern,” and on Tuesday, another juror tested positive for COVID-19.
The Seattle Times reported that around 75 people were in attendance in the courtroom to hear the verdict, including families from both sides and relatives of others killed by police officers.
Among those was Leslie Cushman, the founder of the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability and author of Initiative 940, the state’s landmark police accountability law. She said of the case: “Mr. Ellis’ criminal history, medical history, personal history was in front of everyone to see, and we never heard of the misconduct of police or their training issues. It was very unfair.”
The newspaper reported that the trial was the first challenge to the new law, which requires officers to complete de-escalation and mental health training, lowers the criminal liability standard for law enforcement who use deadly force, and establishes rules requiring police to render first aid.
Cushman added that the verdict makes future police accountability uncertain and that the city missed an opportunity to “have changed police culture.”
After the acquittal, Pierce County Superior Judge Bryan Chushcoff thanked the jury for their deliberations, recognizing the length and high-profile nature of the trial. He then responded to previous accusations from the Ellis family that his decisions favored the officers, saying, “Everybody’s always upset at the judge no matter what. I just did the best I could. I tried to call it as neutrally as I could.”
After the announcement, people gathered near the Manuel Ellis mural in Tacoma to protest the acquittal.
