{"id":17934,"date":"2023-09-18T03:54:40","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T08:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=17934"},"modified":"2023-09-18T03:54:46","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T08:54:46","slug":"trial-of-3-washington-officers-charged-with-murder-manslaughter-in-death-of-black-man-set-to-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=17934","title":{"rendered":"Trial of 3 Washington officers charged with murder, manslaughter in death of Black man set to begin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of three Tacoma, Washington, police officers charged in the death of a 33-year-old Black man who was tackled, punched, shocked with a Taser and held face-down on a sidewalk in March 2020, just two months before\u00a0George Floyd\u00a0met a similar fate.
Officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins have been charged with second-degree murder, and Timothy Rankine with first-degree manslaughter, in the death of Manuel \u201cManny\u201d Ellis. All three officers are white. They\u00a0pleaded not guilty.
Opening statements are expected to start Oct. 2 in Pierce County Superior Court in Tacoma. The trial is expected to run four days each week until December.
Ellis purchased a box of doughnuts and some water at a convenience store at about 11:21 p.m. that Tuesday night and walked across the street, where he encountered Burbank and Collins sitting in a patrol car, according to a\u00a0probable cause statement\u00a0filed by the Washington Attorney General\u2019s Office.
Burbank and Collins said Ellis tried to get into a stranger\u2019s car and then attacked the officers when they confronted him. But witnesses say the officers jumped out of their car as Ellis walked by and knocked him to the ground. Several witnesses recorded the encounter with their cell phones as they screamed for the officers to stop, the document said.
A video taken by a woman sitting in a car behind the officers shows Burbank wrapping his arms around Ellis, lifting him into the air and slamming him onto the pavement, striking him with his fist in the process, the statement said.
\u201cCollins then moves in towards Ellis and brings his weight down onto him,\u201d the document said. \u201cWith Ellis underneath him, Collins begins striking Ellis\u2019s head with his fist. Meanwhile, Burbank draws his Taser gun and walks close in towards Ellis. Collins can be seen on S.M.\u2019s video striking Ellis\u2019s head four times, with Ellis screaming after each strike.\u201d
Collins wrapped his arm around Ellis\u2019 neck while squeezing and his head fell limply to the sidewalk. The officer also pressed on Ellis\u2019 back while pushing his face into the ground, the document said.
A doorbell security camera across the street picked up Ellis saying, \u201cCan\u2019t breathe, sir. Can\u2019t breathe,\u201d and one of the officers responded by saying, \u201cShut the (expletive) up, man.\u201d
The officers then wrapped a hobble restraint device around Ellis\u2019 legs and linked it to his handcuffs behind his back in a \u201chog-tie\u201d position while he remained in the prone position. They also pulled a spit-hood over his head. After the hobble was applied, he stopped moving, the statement said.
All three witnesses said Ellis was not fighting back during the struggle, the prosecutor said.
Ellis was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner said the cause of death was \u201chypoxia,\u201d a lack of oxygen, \u201cdue to physical restraint\u201d and found the manner of death was homicide.
Lawyers for the officers filed reports saying Ellis was resisting and trying to get away, so the officers needed to use force to get him into custody.
Experts hired by the officers blamed his death on methamphetamine use and heart problems. They called it an \u201caccident.\u201d
The Pierce County Sheriff\u2019s Office initially investigated the death, but months later when it was revealed sheriff\u2019s personnel were involved in the detention, Gov. Jay Inslee ordered the Washington State Patrol to take over the investigation and referred the charging decision to the Washington Attorney General\u2019s Office.
Charges were filed on May 27, 2021, marking the first time the attorney general\u2019s office has charged a law enforcement officer with murder. It was only the second time an officer has been charged with murder in Washington state since voters approved\u00a0Initiative 940\u00a0in 2018, which removed the requirement that prosecutors show an officer acted with malice in order to be charged with murder.
Auburn Officer Jeffrey Nelson was charged in 2020 with second-degree murder and first-degree assault in the shooting death of Jesse Sarey on May 31, 2019. His trial is pending.
Ellis\u2019 family\u00a0filed a wrongful death lawsuit\u00a0against the county and officers and the Pierce County Council approved a\u00a0$4 million settlement agreement\u00a0in 2022. The deal ended the county\u2019s involvement, but Ellis\u2019 sister, Monet Carter-Mixon, and mother, Marcia Carter, continue to pursue their wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Tacoma.
apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the trial of three Tacoma, Washington, police officers charged in the death of a 33-year-old Black man who was tackled, punched, shocked with a Taser and held face-down on a sidewalk in March 2020, just two months before\u00a0George Floyd\u00a0met a similar fate.Officers Christopher Burbank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22465,22464,1906,1227],"class_list":["post-17934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-manslaughter-in-death-of-black-man","tag-three-police-officers-charged-with-murder","tag-trial","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17936,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17934\/revisions\/17936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}