Defense rests its case in trial of Tacoma officers charged in Manny Ellis' death
What You Need To Know
🚔 Tacoma police officers Matthew Collins, Christopher Burbank and Timothy Rankine face felony charges in the death of Manuel "Manny" Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who died in police custody on March 3, 2020. All three pleaded not guilty and are on paid leave.
🏛 After nearly six weeks and hearing from about two dozen witnesses, prosecutors from the state Attorney General’s Office rested their case on Nov. 8. Attorneys for the officers are expected to call several more witnesses before resting their case, including their clients.
🎧 The Walk Home, a national award-winning podcast from KNKX and The Seattle Times, goes deeper into the life and death of Manny Ellis and what led to this trial.
🗒 KNKX reporters Mayowa Aina and Jared Brown are covering the trial. Questions or comments about the trial? Contact us at outreach@knkx.org
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Defense rests, third officer declines to testify
In court Wednesday, attorneys for the three Tacoma police officers charged with killing Manny Ellis rested their case.
Closing arguments are expected next week.
Before resting, Officer Christopher Shane Burbank told Judge Bryan Chushcoff that he didn’t want to testify.
"And you understand what the circumstances and what the consequences would be of your potentially failing to testify?" Chushcoff asked.
"I do, your honor," Burbank replied.
"And compared it with your actually testifying?" Chushcoff confirmed.
"Yes, your honor," Burbank said.
Burbank’s partner, Officer Matthew Collins, and one of his former trainees, Officer Timothy Rankine took the stand this week.
In court Wednesday morning, Rankine was asked about the risks of taking Ellis out of hogtie restraints while waiting for paramedics.
"He could fall....once you take him out of handcuffs, I’ve had multiple people just start fighting," Rankine testified.
A paramedic has testified that Ellis was unresponsive and barely breathing on his arrival. Pierce County’s former medical examiner testified he thinks the restraint by police cut off Ellis’ supply for so long that he was brain dead by that point.
Court will resume Thursday to discuss jury instructions, the proceedings will not be livestreamed. Closing arguments are expected Monday.
Defense attempts to dismiss case, judge declines
Attorneys representing three Tacoma police officers on trial for the in-custody death of Manuel Ellis asked that the case be dismissed Wednesday, claiming a prosecutor had deliberately violated the court’s orders to get a mistrial.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff declined to dismiss the case, telling defense attorneys and prosecutors that special prosecutor Patty Eakes went too far in her questioning of officer Timothy Rankine and had violated the courts orders but that a dismissal wasn’t justified.
One of Rankine’s attorneys, Mark Conrad, then made a motion for a mistrial, but the judge shot that down, too.
The issue arose within the first few questions Eakes asked officer Timothy Rankine during a re-cross examination. With the jurors in the room, Eakes asked Rankine about the days that elapsed between Ellis’ death on March 3, 2020, and when the officer gave his statement to investigators who were looking into the man’s death.
“And you had three days to be able to consider and counsel before you went into this interview, correct?” Eakes asked.
“Can you — counsel? I don’t know what that means,” Rankine replied.
“You had other people with you in the interview, correct?” Eakes said.
Conrad objected and asked to be heard outside the jury’s presence. Once jurors left the courtroom, the defense attorney said he was “shocked” by the line of questioning, telling Chushcoff he’d heard at least two violations of motions in limine, which control what information is allowed into the trial.
Defense attorneys representing all of the officers said they had no doubt that Eakes’ had deliberately committed misconduct to get a mistrial, allowing the state to try its case again.
“Now they’re losing this trial and they want a mistrial,” said Casey Arbenz, an attorney for officer Matthew Collins. “We’re winning the case. They know it.”
Eakes told Chushcoff she didn’t think there was a basis to dismiss the case based solely on the use of the word “counsel.” She said prosecutors didn’t want a mistrial, and the idea that the defense was winning the case was their perception. Her intention wasn’t to ask whether Rankine had a lawyer, Eakes said, but to ask if he had time to consider the seriousness of Ellis’ death.
The issue over the potential misconduct overshadowed much of the morning’s testimony, which was largely about how long Rankine was at the scene of Ellis’ fatal encounter until medical personnel from The Tacoma Fire Department arrived.
Rankine left the witness stand at the end of Wednesday morning.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The News Tribune.
Timothy Rankine expected to continue testifying Wednesday
Tacoma officer Timothy Rankine took the stand Tuesday. Rankine is accused of manslaughter for pressing on Manny Ellis’ back after he was hogtied and said "I can't breathe."
Rankine told the jury that when he arrived on the scene, he saw Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank on top of Ellis and struggling to restrain him. Ellis was already in handcuffs. Rankine described Ellis as bucking back and forth.
Special prosecutor Patty Eakes questioned Rankine about when he heard Ellis say "I can't breathe" and whether he passed that information to others officers.
Rankine testified he told no one, including the officer who placed a spit hood over Ellis' head. Rankine also said he stayed with Ellis the entire time and didn't see the spit hood placed on him.
Eakes asked the officer when he first saw the spit hood.
"Did you see the spit hood before fire arrived?" Eakes asked.
"No," Rankine said.
"So when you were looking at his face and at his eyes and, and checking his carotid artery for his pulse, you didn't notice that a spit hood was on him?" she asked.
"I didn't...I did not notice it," he testified.
Collins and Burbank first stopped Ellis and fought him into handcuffs with punches, a neck hold and Taser shocks. They face second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.
Rankine will resume testifying Wednesday morning.
Watch the proceedings via the courtroom livestream on the Pierce County website.
Back-up officer Timothy Rankine testifies in his own defense
As Timothy Rankine sat and pressed his knees on Manuel Ellis while he gasped his last words, “I can’t breathe,” the Tacoma police officer had a thought.
“The only response at that point that I could think of is ‘If you can talk to me, you can still breathe,’” Rankine said Tuesday as he testified in his own defense. Rankine promised to ease up if Ellis stopped wiggling.
Testifying in the trial of three Tacoma officers charged with killing Ellis in 2020, Rankine cried at times, presenting a contrast to his codefendant, Officer Matthew Collins, who spoke stoically over two days of testimony.
Describing the fatal struggle between Ellis and the officers, Rankine testified he arrived at the scene where his codefendants, Collins and Christopher “Shane” Burbank, were trying to control Ellis, who was handcuffed with his wrists behind his back and lying on his stomach with the officers bearing down on his back.
Ellis mimicked “a wiggle-worm,” Rankine testified. Ellis slammed his head on the ground, scooted his knees forward and lurched along the ground with the officers in tow, Rankine said.
“He was just dragging us along,” Rankine said. From that moment, Rankine said, his first concern was gaining control of Ellis until the resistance stopped.
The case against Rankine
The prosecution’s case against Rankine differs from its case against Collins and Burbank, whose versions of events have been challenged by eyewitnesses and their cell phone videos that cast Collins and Burbank as the aggressors.
The most critical evidence against Rankine is his own statement to detectives in the days following Ellis’ death, in which he told the same story that he testified to on Tuesday: He sat on Ellis and didn’t immediately let up when Ellis said he couldn’t breathe.
Prosecutors allege that decision amounts to manslaughter. After Ellis’ death, the state Legislature imposed a “duty to intervene” on police, requiring them to step in when they see another officer acting outside the law.
Rankine testified that Ellis bucked Burbank off his back as Rankine and his partner, who was not charged, arrived. Rankine said he got on top of and eventually positioned his knees on Ellis' back – near the base of his neck and lower back – and sat there to gain control of Ellis, who still periodically thrashed about.
“[Ellis] turned his head to the left and said, ‘I can’t breathe,’ in a very calm everyday conversation-type of voice,” Rankine said. Seconds later, Ellis again said he couldn’t breathe. That’s when Rankine said he responded that Ellis could breathe just fine.
Ellis became still, so Rankine turned him on his side for ease of breathing. When he thrashed his legs once more, Rankine said he moved him onto his stomach again. When medics arrived and instructed officers to remove the handcuffs and the hobble linking Ellis’ ankles to his wrists behind his back, Rankine admitted he was reluctant to do so, for fear Ellis would fight police and medics.
Rankine said he relented, but that the delay was mere “seconds.” Under cross-examination, Rankine admitted that Ellis couldn’t have gotten free in that moment and didn’t need to be on his stomach.
Prosecution questions what Rankine heard, his training
During cross-examination of Rankine, special prosecutor Patty Eakes confronted him with two separate audio recordings where Ellis can be heard expressing that he can’t breathe.
In both instances, Rankine said he couldn’t hear it, prompting a volley of hushed chuckles from observers in the gallery, while some jurors quickly scribbled notes. Rankine later shifted his testimony to clarify that it didn’t sound the same to him on the night that Ellis died.
Rankine testified that he was trained only that the weight of multiple officers – not just one – could cause positional asphyxia to someone who’s in prone restraint, as Ellis was. Earlier in the trial, a national expert on police procedure, testifying for the prosecution, said the best practice for law enforcement when a subject is in a prone restraint is to minimize placing weight on their back due to the risk of asphyxiation.
In his testimony, Rankine portrayed himself as a caring cop deeply concerned about Ellis. He said he monitored Ellis’ pulse, twice moved Ellis to his side to make it easier for him to breathe and helped perform CPR on Ellis.
“The loss of life is tragic, no matter who it is,” Rankine testified. “This whole incident was tragic. I don’t think any of us sitting here thought he would die that night. On a personal level, it’s completely changed my life.”
Violent training episode excluded from trial
Rankine’s path to becoming a Tacoma police officer was marred by a troubling incident at the state police academy in late 2018. During a training exercise — designed to test cadets’ understanding of the limits of appropriate use of force — Rankine was the lone recruit in his class of about 30 to shoot a suspect in an online simulation.
Rankine’s trainer described a mental break — “mental condition black” — and was so alarmed by Rankine’s response that he notified Tacoma police. The department followed through with hiring him anyway.
Jurors did not hear about the incident at the academy. Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff excluded it from the trial, ruling that it could prejudice jurors against Rankine.
The Seattle Times report exposed the incident, triggering an ongoing discussion at the Washington Criminal Justice Training Commission about potentially expanded authority to remove recruits who show signs of being mentally unfit for police work.
Jurors also didn’t hear about a lawsuit against Rankine and his patrol partner brought by a man they arrested less than three months before Ellis’ death. In that arrest, Rankine is recorded on cellphone video kneeling on the man’s back when he says he can’t breathe. That lawsuit, as well as a civil action by Ellis’ family against the city of Tacoma, are on hold until the trial is resolved.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Wednesday morning in Pierce County Superior Court with Rankine still on the witness stand.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The Seattle Times.
Officer Timothy Rankine begins testimony
Jurors heard testimony Tuesday morning from two of three Tacoma police officers on trial for the death of Manuel Ellis.
The day began with Officer Matthew Collins under cross-examination about his testimony on Monday. Officer Timothy Rankine spent about a half-hour on the witness stand before the trial stopped for lunch, breaking down in tears at times while he testified.
Most of the morning was spent dealing with unexpected courtroom drama that caused Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff concern.
Most of Collins’ testimony Tuesday focused not on the night Ellis died, but a 2017 arrest that he said informed his actions on the night he encountered Ellis. Collins described a powerful subject, apparently on drugs, at a break-in inside an apartment building.
Collins believed that suspect was experiencing “excited delirium,” a controversial concept that professional medical and psychiatric associations reject as scientifically unsound. Police embrace it as an explanation for when people are extraordinarily strong, sweaty and numb to pain – often under the influence of drugs.
One prosecution expert earlier in the trial compared believing in excited delirium to believing that the Earth is flat, because science doesn’t support it, he said.
At times, the gallery reacted audibly to Collins’ testimony. There were gasps and sighs from some observers when Collins described Ellis as aggressive as seen on the eyewitness videos – something many present apparently found unbelievable.
“It does seem to me that people are letting their impulses get the best of them,” Judge Chushcoff said of the reactions from the gallery. Without the jury present, Chushcoff said he heard “murmurs” in response to witnesses and lawyers that he feared could affect jurors’ decision-making. He threatened to remove observers from the courtroom if the reactions persisted.
Testimony was interrupted again when a juror reported to the court that he’d accidentally seen a TV news report about the trial after a Monday night NFL game. Jurors are prohibited from following the case in the media. After being questioned by the judge, the juror said he would base his decision-making exclusively on what was presented in court, and he was allowed to remain on the panel.
Rankine, who began testifying late in the morning, described growing up in Singapore, moving to the U.S. as a teen and serving almost six years in the military.
Rankine said he arrived at the scene when Burbank and Collins were on top of and struggling to restrain Ellis, who was handcuffed. Rankine described “watching Mr. Ellis buck back and forth, and Officer Burbank looked like he was just riding a wild horse.”
Burbank tumbled off of Ellis, Rankine testified. That’s when “I had to move myself on top of Mr. Ellis,” he said.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday afternoon in Pierce County Superior Court with Rankine on the witness stand.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The Seattle Times.
Collins will resume testifying Tuesday, here's what he's said so far
In court Monday, Tacoma police officer Matthew Collins defended how and why he violently subdued and restrained Manny Ellis during a fatal encounter in March 2020.
This was the first time one of the three Tacoma police officers charged with killing Manny Ellis took the stand. Officer Matthew Collins was driving the patrol car that stopped Ellis in south Tacoma.
Collins is on trial for second-degree murder and manslaughter. He testified he first saw Ellis, a Black man, late at night standing in the intersection of 96th Street and Ainsworth Avenue grabbing at a car driving by.
Collins said he called out to Ellis, who jogged over to the patrol car and said he had warrants.
Collins said the 33-year-old was wide-eyed, sweaty and carrying a grocery bag. As he went to sit on the curb Collins said Ellis started staring at his partner, Officer Christopher Burbank.
"I don't know what's going to happen. And I'm watching him. And there's a brief interchange where they kind of say something, and then all sudden, he starts punching the window," Collins testified Monday.
Collins testified he got out of the patrol car and was running to help his partner when Ellis lifted him up by his vest and threw him down.
That’s something no one else has reported seeing, including Collins’ own partner. Three motorists have testified they watched the two officers get out of the patrol car and said Ellis had been walking on the sidewalk.
Collins also testified he didn’t hear Ellis say “I can’t breathe” which was captured multiple times in a recording from a nearby doorbell camera. Eyewitnesses also testified hearing this.
"I was focused on his hands and I was focusing on getting him into handcuffs. And I didn’t hear any of that," Collins said.
Asked about the audio that captures Ellis saying he couldn’t breathe and an officer responding to “shut the [expletive] up, man,” Collins said it was probably him because his partner doesn’t swear.
Collins is accused of punching Ellis excessively and using a neck hold to get him into handcuffs and hogtie him which is the position he was in when he died.
Under cross-examination, special prosecutor Patty Eakes grilled Collins about his testimony that Ellis, a pedestrian, was trying to open a car turning through an intersection and then attacked their patrol car when they were stopped at a red light.
Eakes asked Collins why he didn’t immediately radio dispatch that evening. Or after he said Ellis threatened to punch his partner in the face.
"And even at that point, you didn't radio in?" Eakes asked.
"Well, pretty much the instant he said that he started punching the window. So it all kind of happened like that," Collins said.
Collins testified that video of him elbowing Ellis repeatedly in the face didn’t capture how Ellis was wildly hitting him. And that video showing his partner take down Ellis was a collision in mid air the left Ellis on the ground. Eyewitnesses have testified Ellis didn’t fight back.
Collins is slated to take more questions Tuesday morning from attorneys for Burbank and back-up Officer Timothy Rankine, who is accused of manslaughter. Burbank and Collins also face a second-degree murder charge.
A livestream of the proceedings is available on the Pierce County website.
Collins testifies he wouldn't have done anything differently
Matthew Collins, one of three Tacoma police officers on trial for the death of Manuel Ellis, took the unusual step Monday of testifying in his own defense, telling jurors he was hyperfocused on handcuffing Ellis the night of the fatal encounter and never heard him say he couldn’t breathe.
But even if he had heard Ellis express that he couldn’t breathe, Collins testified he wouldn’t have done anything differently.
“Anything that someone would say to us until they’re complying with us, with hands behind their back [to cuff], would be irrelevant to me,” Collins said.
In cross-examination, special prosecutor Patty Eakes confronted Collins with a recording of him telling Ellis to “shut the [expletive] up,” after Ellis pleaded for air at least five times while officers continued to apply force, according to recordings entered as evidence.
Collins said he only heard “animal noises” from Ellis but acknowledged it must’ve been his voice on the recording because his partner and co-defendant Officer Christopher “Shane” Burbank, eschews swearing.
It’s unusual for defendants to testify, particularly in manslaughter and murder cases, because it exposes defendants to questions about their criminal histories. That generally doesn’t apply to police officers, and Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff has excluded testimony about past evidence of misconduct.
In testimony Monday, Collins insisted he never heard Ellis say that he couldn’t breathe. At least three of the instances were recorded when only Collins and Burbank were present, and Timothy Rankine’s partner, Masiyh Ford, testified that he heard Ellis say he couldn’t breathe in the presence of Burbank and Collins.
“He’s fighting us,” Collins said. “We can deal with the air thing after we get him in handcuffs.”
Collins testified that he and Burbank came upon Ellis at a south Tacoma intersection. He became concerned as he approached their police cruiser because Ellis was sweaty and his eyes were wide open.
Collins said Ellis’ “body language” signaled that he was “fixating on Officer Burbank.” Then, Collins said, Ellis threatened to punch Burbank and smacked the passenger’s window of their police cruiser, where Burbank sat.
“As soon as he started punching the window, I was sprinting out of the car,” Collins said.
He claims he rounded the front of their police cruiser, where Ellis picked him off the ground and threw him through the air.
But that is contradicted by eyewitnesses who testified earlier in the trial that the violence began when Burbank flung open his door, knocking Ellis to the ground. Burbank’s statement to detectives days after Ellis’ death makes no mention of the scene Collins described. Collins said Ellis exhibited “superhuman strength.”
Eyewitnesses, including two who filmed cellphone video, said Ellis did nothing to provoke the officers. Their videos, which have been shown to the jury numerous times, show Collins applying a neck hold to Ellis, slamming him to the ground and striking at him with elbows. They show Collins at one point lift and slam Ellis to the ground, then punch him repeatedly before Burbank delivered three Taser strikes to Ellis’ torso.
After the eyewitnesses had left, Rankine and Ford arrived along with about 20 more officers from various law enforcement agencies. Ellis was handcuffed with his hands behind his back, prone on his stomach, hobbled by a strap attached to his cuffed wrists and had a nylon spit hood placed over his face.
Collins testified that he believed Ellis was suffering from “excited delirium,” a controversial term embraced by law enforcement but widely rejected by the medical profession. Major medical and psychological associations reject the existence of excited delirium, and California has banned it as a cause of death. Yet it’s still taught at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission’s police academy.
Collins described Ellis as impervious to pain and extraordinarily strong — both hallmarks of excited delirium from Collins’ training — yet Ellis can be heard shrieking in pain when Collins and Burbank strike him on the videos.
The trial is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning in Pierce County Superior Court with Collins still on the witness stand. Rankine’s lawyers have said he plans to testify as well. Burbank’s lawyers have been mum about whether he intends to testify.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The Seattle Times.
Officer Matthew Collins testimony closely follows his earlier statements
Officer Matthew Collins, one of three Tacoma police officers charged in the death of Manuel Ellis, testified Monday morning that “human life is precious,” but he defended his actions in compelling testimony during the ninth and potentially final week of trial.
Collins hewed closely to his earlier statements about the fatal encounter: that Ellis initiated it by lifting Collins off the ground and throwing him through the air to land on his back.
Nobody else interviewed by detectives saw that happen, including Collins’ patrol partner and co-defendant, Christopher “Shane” Burbank. Eyewitnesses who testified that they observed the start of the physical interaction between Ellis and police described Collins and Burbank as the initial aggressors.
Collins lamented Ellis’ fate. “For police officers, it’s the worst thing that can happen. In this case, undoubtedly Manny was in the wrong, but at the end of the day his mother lost a child, his sister lost a brother,” he said.
He also testified that the incident changed his life in ways he couldn’t imagine. “I didn’t think in my wildest nightmares that the state would come after us for this,” he said.
Their trial marks the first courtroom test of Initiative 940, a voter-approved police-accountability measure that removed legal barriers to charging police officers for on-duty deaths. Criminal charges against officers under those circumstances have resulted in charges just six times over the past century in Washington state.
Collins and Burbank said in statements to detectives that Ellis threatened to punch Burbank and slammed his hand against their police cruiser, so Burbank knocked Ellis to the ground with his car door, starting what Collins described as a “melee.”
Officer Timothy Rankine and his partner were the first backup officers to arrive on the scene, where Rankine told detectives he sat on Ellis’ back until medics arrived, even after Ellis said he could not breathe.
All three officers have pleaded not guilty, are free on bail and remain employed by the Tacoma Police Department on paid leave.
During the first eight weeks of trial, prosecution experts pinpointed the officers’ actions as the likely cause of Ellis’ death. Since then, the officers’ lawyers have countered that testimony with their own experts, who said Ellis’ enlarged heart and methamphetamine killed him.
On the stand Monday, Collins said he interpreted Ellis’ “body language” to mean he was focusing aggressively on Burbank, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat of the patrol cruiser Collins was driving. So Collins said he got out to confront Ellis.
“As soon as I get to the front of the vehicle, he takes his focus off of Burbank and comes right at me and picks me up by my vest and throws me back in the intersection,” Collins said, describing what nobody else at the scene has testified to seeing. He claimed Ellis also struck him, something no witnesses reported seeing. Photos of Collins after the incident did not show any injuries that would support his testimony.
Collins testified to the importance of handcuffing suspects who seem violent or unruly. He said it was extraordinarily difficult for him and Collins to get Ellis in handcuffs. Even after his hands were cuffed behind him, Ellis continued to resist the officers by moving his lower body, according to Collins.
Collins said he was experiencing “auditory exclusion” – failure to hear sounds during a stressful situation – when Ellis was recorded on a nearby home surveillance video saying he couldn’t breathe. At a juncture when only Collins and Burbank are present, Ellis can be heard pleading that he can’t breathe, and someone responds: “Shut the (expletive) up, man.”
“If it happened when only Burbank and I were there, it was me, because I’ve never heard Officer Burbank cuss …,” Collins said. “But I don’t have an independent recollection of saying that.”
Even if he had heard Ellis say he couldn’t breathe, Collins said he would not have acted differently than he did.
“He’s fighting us,” Collins testified. “We can deal with the air thing after we get him in handcuffs.”
By the time paramedics arrived, Ellis had been struck by fists and elbows, placed in a neck hold, jolted three times with a Taser, handcuffed with ankle hobbles strapped to his wrists behind his back, had a nylon spit hood placed over his face and was knelt or sat on by multiple officers. Collins testified that he never expected Ellis to die on the night they struggled.
Collins, a married father of four, testified that he has been passionate about Brazilian jujitsu for two decades, including teaching grappling tactics to his Army unit. Collins spent almost eight years in the military and was deployed for combat multiple times.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday afternoon in Pierce County Superior Court with Collins testifying.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The Seattle Times.
KNKX's Jared Brown discuss the trial on Seattle Now
KNKX reporter Jared Brown joined KUOW's Seattle Now podcast to explain the arguments in the case, and what the jury must weigh when deliberations begin.
Jared also discusses the key question that has emerged for the jury: If they trust the police account of what happened the night Manny Ellis died, or the account of witnesses who contradict the officers.
Listen to "Police accountability on trial in Tacoma" and check back here for Jared's ongoing reporting from the courtroom.
Defendant Matthew Collins takes the stand
After court went into an early recess last week, the trial of three Tacoma officers charged with killing Manny Ellis resumed Monday morning.
Attorneys for the defense called Tacoma Police officer Matthew Collins, one of the defendants, to testify.
The other charged officers, Christopher Burbank and Timothy Rankine, are also expected to testify in their defense.
Watch the proceedings via the courtroom livestream on the Pierce County website.
Trial goes into an early recess due to one of the defendants being ill
The trial of the three Tacoma police officers charged with killing Manny Ellis went into an early recess Thursday afternoon because one of the defendants was sick.
Court was canceled for a day earlier this week because the same officer, Christopher Burbank, was ill.
The trial is expected to resume Monday with prosecutors continuing their cross-examination of toxicology expert Asa Louis.
The defense teams for Burbank and Officers Matthew Collins and Timothy Rankine said in court today that they are still discussing whether to call additional witnesses — as well as their clients — to the stand.
Forensic toxicologist's testimony short on new insights
A forensic toxicologist called by attorneys for three Tacoma police officers on trial for the death of Manuel Ellis testified Thursday morning about methamphetamine found in Ellis’ system and the drug’s effects.
Asa Louis works for the Washington State Patrol’s crime lab in Seattle, which he said processed about 16,000 samples from police agencies and coroner’s offices last year. He’s worked in the field for 24 years, and he told jurors his job is to review samples to determine if the person it originated from was taking a medication as prescribed or if they were taking too much or too little of the drug.
The morning’s testimony didn’t offer many new insights into how meth would have affected Ellis the night he died in police custody in 2020. Under direct examination from Mark Conrad, an attorney representing defendant officer Timothy Rankine, Louis said it was “possible” Ellis’ underlying heart condition would lower the amount of meth that could be lethal to him.
Methamphetamine, a stimulant that affects the central nervous system, was found in Ellis at levels of 2400 nanograms per milliliter after he died the night of March 3, 2020. The former Pierce County medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Clark, called it an “extremely high” concentration in his autopsy report. Clark testified earlier in the trial that while he found meth was a factor in Ellis’ death, it wasn’t the primary factor. He determined that to by hypoxia, a form of oxygen deprivation, caused by physical restraint.
The drug is a controlled substance, but Louis said there are some accepted uses of meth, such as to treat narcolepsy and ADHD or for military use to keep a pilot awake to fly a plane across the world. He said therapeutic ranges are considered 20-50 nanograms per milliliter.
At therapeutic levels, Louis testified, meth can cause individuals to have an increased heart rate, it will keep them awake and it can cause fidgeting. At higher levels, Louis said, a person can lose the ability to focus on a specific task or properly assess risk.
The toxicologist drew graphs to illustrate concepts for jurors such as drug tolerance and how methamphetamine metabolizes into amphetamine. Trial testimony has shown that Ellis struggled with meth addiction for much of his adult life, but before his death he moved into a clean-and-sober home in Tacoma after relapsing around Christmas 2019.
By discussing drug tolerance, lawyers for the officers are trying to show jurors that when Ellis took meth again before his death, his tolerance for the drug would have been lower, so its effects on him would have been greater. The lawyers have argued that a meth overdose that led to heart failure caused Ellis' death, not the actions of officers Christopher Burbank, Matthew Collins and Rankine.
Thursday morning’s testimony ended with assistant attorneys general Kent Liu beginning to question the forensic toxicologist. The cross examination is expected to continue Thursday afternoon.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The News Tribune.
Forensic toxicologist continues testimony
Asa Louis, a forensic scientist with the Washington State Patrol crime lab, continued testifying for the defense Thursday morning.
Attorneys for the three Tacoma police officers are expected to call their clients to testify next.
Watch the proceedings via the courtroom livestream on the Pierce County website.
Prosecution re-cross examines defense's use-of-force expert
Prosecutors trying three Tacoma police officers accused of killing Manuel Ellis drilled into a defense use-of-force expert Wednesday afternoon on the dangers of leaving someone in a prone position.
Under a re-cross examination, Renton police training sergeant Chris Nielsen conceded that officers are trained to recognize the risks of holding someone in place on their stomach, not put unnecessary weight on the back and take steps to reduce the risk of harm to the person.
But Nielsen maintained that when defendant officer Timothy Rankine arrived as backup for officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins, Rankine was justified in keeping Ellis prone and continuing to put pressure on his back.
During the morning’s testimony, Nielsen downplayed the danger of prone positioning, saying it was “exceedingly rare” for someone to die that way. In the afternoon, assistant attorney general Lori Nicolavo bore down on his testimony, asking him if he had ever conducted studies on positional asphyxia. The police sergeant said he hadn’t.
“Have you stood there and watched someone die from positional asphyxia?” Nicolavo asked.
Nielsen said in 13 years of law enforcement work and in thousands of arrests, he’d never seen it happen. Nicolavo then asked Nielsen if he’d ever put both knees on a person’s back and lower neck while they were restrained on their stomach and saying they couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t recall that I have,” Nielsen said.
Nicolavo argued that a reasonable police officer should use the most effective and safest response that is proportional to the crime at hand. She suggested that with more than a dozen law enforcement officers on scene the night Ellis died, police could have taken the hobbles off Ellis and put him into a seated position rather than continue to keep him prone.
Nielsen said that wasn’t a feasible option because Ellis had been thrashing on the ground. Just because a seated position might have been safer for Ellis, he said, that doesn’t mean Rankine’s decision to keep the man prone was an inappropriate one.
The police sergeant was also asked whether Ellis should have been considered by officers to be in medical distress, a key factor of the trial because it is the first to test a new police accountability law requiring police to render aid to subjects in their custody at the first opportunity, Initiative 940, which was adopted by the state Legislature in 2019.
Nicolavo asked if officers should consider someone to potentially be in medical distress if, like Ellis, the person is handcuffed and placed in hobbles, says they can’t breathe, goes completely quiet and has a thousand-yard stare. Nielsen said officers should attend to that and focus on it as a factor of the police contact.
Prosecutors have claimed that all three officers heard Ellis say he couldn’t breathe and should have immediately intervened.
Lawyers for the officers have argued that police had to subdue Ellis because he was aggressive and resisted arrest, and they have pointed to the methamphetamine in his system and the man’s underlying health conditions, including an enlarged heart, as another explanation for his death.
Nielsen’s testimony concluded Wednesday afternoon, and he was excused, ending days of questioning.
Before court adjourned for the day, the defense called an investigator from the Washington State Patrol’s crime lab, Asa Louis to testify as a forensic toxicologist. His testimony is expected to continue Thursday morning.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The News Tribune.
Testimony from defense use of force expert continues, officers expected to testify soon
A police use of force expert testified Monday that the Tacoma police officers’ punches, neck hold and Taser shocks of Manny Ellis were appropriate because Ellis was resisting arrest.
Chris Nielsen is a training sergeant for the Renton Police Department. He resumed testifying Wednesday, after court was canceled Tuesday.
On Monday, he told the jury he believes what Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank said to investigators, which was that Ellis attacked them.
In court, Nielsen analyzed cell phone video of the arrest that turned Ellis’ death into national news.
He also said Officer Timothy Rankine pressing on Ellis’ back while he was hogtied was reasonable because Rankine had said Ellis was flailing.
"If you do nothing, and he smashes his teeth out on the pavement, then you own that outcome, you're responsible for that, as the police officer on scene. If he smashes his head on the pavement gives himself a concussion or a skull fracture, you own that outcome," Nielsen testified Monday.
Medical experts have testified that Ellis suffocated from the police restraints. An emergency room doctor testifying for the officers said Ellis overdosed.
All three officers have pleaded not guilty. They are expected to testify soon.
Attorneys for the officers have said they expect to call at least one more witness after Nielsen, a toxicology analyst from the state crime lab, before their clients testify.
Once the officers’ attorneys rest, the prosecution may call rebuttal witnesses. Earlier in the trial, Judge Bryan Chushcoff didn’t allow state police academy trainers to testify. Instead, he left the door open for the trainers to testify if the officers’ training became a dispute.
The jury has heard conflicting testimony from use of force experts about whether or not police are trained to avoid leaving people facedown and hogtied with weight on their backs, which is the position Ellis was in when he died.
One expert testified that police have been trained for years that the position puts people in danger of suffocating. But Nielsen, testifying in defense of the officers, said it was appropriate for police to continue restraining Ellis in that way because he was thrashing around and could have hurt him himself.
After brief delay, trial resumes Wednesday morning
Court resumed Wednesday morning after a juror was delayed getting in. A freezing fog advisory remained in effect for the morning.
Watch the proceedings via the courtroom livestream on the Pierce County website.
Court canceled for the day Tuesday
No testimony was presented Tuesday in the trial of three Tacoma police officers charged for the death of Manuel Ellis.
Pierce County Superior Court announced around 8 a.m. Tuesday that the trial would be delayed until the afternoon due to icy road conditions. Before noon, the court abandoned plans to hear testimony on Tuesday when one of the defendants reportedly had become ill.
Testimony is tentatively scheduled to resume on Wednesday when lawyers for the officers are expected to continue countering prosecution expert witnesses with their own.
Lawyers representing the officers told Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff on Monday that they anticipate calling three or four more witnesses before the officers are expected to testify. Collins’ and Rankine’s lawyers have said they both intend to testify. Burbank’s legal team has been mum about whether he will take the stand.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The Seattle Times.
Court will resume at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday
There will be no morning session today due to weather. The National Weather Service issued a freezing fog advisory for Tacoma and Puget Sound region Tuesday morning.
The trial will resume Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 p.m.
Check the Pierce County website for updates and the courtroom livestream once court is back in session.
Police training expert says officers use of force was justified, prosecutors try to paint him as biased
Even if Manuel Ellis was posing no threat to police on the night he died, officers were justified in continually applying force, a police training expert testified Monday afternoon.
“It would be wholly inappropriate if Mr. Ellis continued to flail around in handcuffs and they just simply watched,” said Chris Nielsen, an expert witness for the officers’ defense. He said the first two officers to encounter Ellis acted appropriately, a contradiction to testimony from a prosecution expert who said the officers used excessive force and their co-defendant recklessly bore down on him while he was handcuffed and hogtied.
Nielsen, a former King County prosecutor and current Renton police sergeant who serves as a trainer, conceded that eyewitness and security video footage does not show Ellis trying to hit or kick officers, as Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank described.
However, Nielsen said the videos capture about a minute of the four to five minutes that Collins and Burbank were engaged with Ellis. “The fight was well underway by the time the video began,” Nielsen testified.
Nielsen conducted his analysis accepting the officers’ version of events, including Collins’ claim that Ellis violently attacked him – something nobody else, including Burbank, reported.
“There’s a whole host of things that I think happened that aren’t contained on the video,” Nielsen said. “That’s among them.”
He also accepted the officers’ claim that Ellis was suffering from “excited delirium,” a controversial term that major medical and psychiatric associations reject as an explanation for deaths. In law enforcement parlance, "excited delirium" refers to powerful and irrational subjects – usually on drugs – who are often impervious to pain and require extensive force to control.
“Excited delirium people are scary people,” Nielsen said, and it’s common that more than one officer is needed to subdue them.
Nielsen said Burbank’s and Collins’ use of force escalated because of Ellis’ actions – specifically the officers’ claim that Ellis threatened to punch Burbank and smacked his hand against their police cruiser, then resisted arrest. He said the officers’ actions – using a Taser on Ellis, punching him, placing him in a neck hold and ultimately pressing on him while he lay prone – were reasonable.
Shown the same video clip that a prosecution expert described as Ellis raising his hands in surrender while Collins applied a neck hold and Burbank jolted him with a Taser, Nielsen said, “This is what resistance looks like.” He described Ellis’ actions throughout the video evidence as “extremely noncompliant.”
Nielsen said Officer Timothy Rankine, who sat on Ellis' back, used reasonable force on Ellis, even though he heard Ellis gasp his last words, “I can’t breathe,” and remained atop him until medics took over.
“The level of force officer Rankine used was a relatively low level of force,” Nielsen said. “Placing someone in a prone position and placing transient weight on their back has a very low likelihood of a bad outcome.”
Prosecutors, in their cross-examination, tried to paint Nielsen as biased in favor of law enforcement. He acknowledged that in more than 90 use-of-force instances that he’s analyzed for court cases, he’s only found wrongdoing by an officer once.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning in Pierce County Superior Court.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The Seattle Times.
Another juror dismissed, police training expert resumes testimony
A police training expert testified Monday morning that the use of force against Manuel Ellis was appropriate, as the trial of three Tacoma police officers charged with Ellis’ death entered its eighth week.
Before testimony resumed, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff excused a juror after their transportation to the trial was hampered by an early morning crash on black ice Monday on their way to court.
The trial had already been delayed when a second juror tested positive for COVID over the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. The court skipped two days of scheduled testimony last week because of that. The first juror to test positive for COVID, on Nov. 16, was excused. The jury pool of 16 now stands at 14, with two alternates.
Defense lawyers for the officers on trial wanted so badly to retain the juror with the transportation issue that they offered Monday to pay for a ride-share service for the duration of the trial.
“We’re going lose too much time,” Chushcoff said, explaining his ruling to move ahead with testimony and excuse the juror. “I think it’s problematic for one party to pay for a juror to get here.”
After jury matters were settled Monday morning, Chris Nielsen, a training sergeant for Renton police who was called by the defense as an expert in police procedure, resumed testimony that began on Nov. 16 before the unexpected delay.
Nielsen’s testimony acted as a counterweight to a prosecution expert who testified earlier that the charged officers, including Rankine, used excessive force on Ellis and recklessly continued applying pressure on his back while he lay prone and repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe.
“What I saw was several force options that they tried that failed,” Nielsen testified.
Nielsen said it is allowable and in fact often necessary for police to meet the resistance or force they encounter with even greater force in order to gain control of unruly subjects.
Neilson testified that various tactics used by the charged officers — Officer Christopher Burbank knocking Ellis to the ground with a car door, Officer Matthew Collins placing Ellis in a neck hold, Burbank striking Ellis three times with a Taser, both officers striking Ellis repeatedly in the head, and officers placing their weight on Ellis even after he was handcuffed — were all justified.
He said the officers’ actions were ineffective on Ellis. An audio clip of Ellis saying, “Try it again” while being tased should be considered a frightening sign for officers because measures that typically subdue subjects weren’t working, and police commonly view claims such as Ellis’ that he couldn’t breathe as a ruse, he said.
“You evaluate the context of the event,” Nielsen, a former King County prosecutor, said. “Their words are less important than the context.”
Nielsen said he based his conclusions largely on the statements the defendant officers made to detectives, dismissing eyewitness statements that contradicted them. Under cross-examination from assistant Washington Attorney General Lori Nicolavo, Nielson testified that of the more than 90 cases he’s testified in, he has found wrongdoing by police only once. He also said that he serves on a lethal force review board that has never ruled that an on-duty killing by police was unjustified.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Monday afternoon with Nielson under cross-examination.
Excerpted from pool report provided by The Seattle Times.
New from The Seattle Times: Here’s what jurors in the Tacoma police trial aren’t being told
In a new article, Seattle Times investigative reporter Patrick Malone reviews what Judge Bryan Chushcoff has, and hasn't, allowed the jurors to hear over the course of the trial.
Trial resumes Monday after holiday, postponement due to COVID-19
The trial of the three Tacoma police officers charged with killing Manny Ellis resumes Monday after last week’s proceedings were canceled due to COVID-19 among the jury.
Before the defense rests, attorneys for officers Matthew Collins, Christopher Burbank and Timothy Rankine are expected to call several more witnesses, including their clients.
The jury will continue hearing from a use of force expert Renton police training sergeant Chris Nielsen.
When he was last on the stand, Nielsen said the officers’ actions in general were reasonable, if Ellis did in fact attack them.
"If the officers just inexplicably attacked a guy walking down the road, that would be a vastly different analysis," Nielsen testified.
"You would agree that would be an inappropriate use of force if you...accepted that as gospel?" asked Wayne Fricke, a defense attorney representing Burbank.
"Oh yeah. Yeah," Nielsen said.
Nielsen is expected to testify specifically about the officers’ using punches, a neck hold and a Taser to subdue Ellis, and whether it was reasonable to leave Ellis restrained face down in a hogtie for several minutes while waiting for paramedics.
The jury will be tasked with deciding to believe the officers or the eyewitnesses who say Ellis never acted aggressively.
Watch the proceedings via the courtroom livestream on the Pierce County website.
Find KNKX's coverage of the trial from Nov. 13 - 17 here.