Three Tacoma, Washington, police officers were acquitted on Thursday (Dec 21) in the killing of Manuel Ellis, an unarmed Black man whose dying pleas for air sparked protests in 2020, in a case bearing parallels to the murder of George Floyd that year.
Officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins were found not guilty of murder and manslaughter charges, while a third officer, Timothy Rankine, was found not guilty of manslaughter following a trial that lasted more than two months.
The three were cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the death of Ellis, 33, despite witness testimony and video evidence presented at trial showing the officers putting Ellis in a chokehold and shooting him with a stun gun on March 3, 2020.
Video footage showed Collins restraining Ellis by the neck as Burbank fired a Taser into his chest while he lay on the ground. Ellis could be heard repeatedly saying: "Can't breathe, sir," during the encounter and was declared dead at the scene.
Defence lawyers for the officers said the police stopped Ellis because he was approaching a car turning at an intersection, while a witness said she saw Ellis just standing at the intersection when police called him over to their car.
Lawyers for the officers argued that Ellis, who had methamphetamine in his system, died due to his drug use and a heart condition. They alleged Ellis kicked the police car door, and they cast his behaviour as leading to "a situation where he created his own death," as Wayne Fricke, the lawyer for Burbank, put it in his summation.
The officers, he said, had no choice but to respond forcefully.
Prosecution witnesses testified that the officers were the aggressors and attacked Ellis unprovoked while he was standing on the sidewalk, and that they did not see Ellis fighting back. The Pierce County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide caused by oxygen deprivation.
Ellis' killing occurred weeks before George Floyd's murder at the hands of Minneapolis police set off months of protests around the world over racial injustice and police brutality. Bystander video of Ellis's death was released in June 2020, a week after Floyd was killed, leading to protests in Tacoma.
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Burbank, Collins and Rankine all remained free on bond and on paid administrative leave from the police department during the trial, according to local media.
Reaction in the Tacoma courtroom was muted as the judge read the verdicts, prompting audible sighs of relief and sobbing in the chamber. A livestream of the hearing showed members of the Ellis family abruptly walking out of the courtroom even as the judge polled the jurors individually to confirm the verdict.
The defendants and supporters were seen hugging and shaking hands with their lawyers as the proceeding ended.
A group of a few dozen people gathered on a Tacoma street corner a short time afterward, blocking traffic, chanting Ellis' name and the slogan, "No justice, no peace," and exhorting bystanders to join the protest.
Lawyers for Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer convicted of murdering Floyd by kneeling on his neck, unsuccessfully mounted a similar defence at trial, arguing that Chauvin's use of force was reasonable and that Floyd's enlarged heart and drug use likely contributed to his death. Prosecutors called numerous experts to testify that he died from asphyxiation.
Chauvin is serving a 21-year sentence in federal prison for violating Floyd's civil rights, as well as a concurrent 22-1/2-year state sentence for his murder conviction. According to a Washington Post analysis, half of the nation's largest police departments have banned or limited neck restraints since Floyd's death, and it remains a focal point in larger federal police reform efforts.
The charges in Tacoma were brought by the Washington state attorney general's office, which was appointed by Democratic Governor Jay Inslee to oversee the case.
The case is the first to charge police with a suspect's death since Washington voters in 2018 approved a ballot measure that made it easier to hold officers criminally responsible in such instances.
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