What’s next for the three Tacoma police charged with killing Manuel Ellis?
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The police death of Manuel Ellis
More than a year after Manuel Ellis died in police custody, the attorney general charged three officers in his death.
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Update as of 3:10 p.m. “The Tacoma Police Department will now start its own internal review of the actions of the officers involved in this incident,” Interim Police Chief Mike Ake said in a statement. “Based on that investigation, we will make further determination regarding any disciplinary actions, policy, or training changes that may occur based on the findings. We will issue Notice of Investigation to officers involved in the incident. This will also include determining the departmental status of the involved officers in accordance with departmental policies and procedures, contractual obligations and following due process.”
Initial article: Three Tacoma police officers charged in the death of Manuel Ellis on Thursday are tentatively scheduled to appear in Pierce County Superior Court on Friday.
What happens after that remains unclear.
Asked this week if the officers would be fired upon conviction or returned to work upon acquittal, if they would remain on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of their case and if there would still be an internal investigation, police department officials said they wouldn’t know what next steps would look like until the findings came out.
A spokesperson did not immediately respond to the News Tribune by phone or email Thursday after the decision. Later she said she had received the request and would provide answers as soon as she had them.
The Tacoma City Council said Thursday that there are no plans to fire the officers yet and that they were evaluating that in light of the decision. Some members pressed for “swift action.”
The officers will be prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office in Pierce County Superior Court.
They filed second-degree murder charges and first-degree manslaughter charges against Officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins and a first-degree manslaughter charge against Timothy Rankine Thursday.
Warrants have been issued for their arrest, the Attorney General’s Office said. The Washington State Patrol is in charge of arresting the officers, who are tentatively scheduled to be arraigned 11:30 a.m. Friday. Jail records showed they had not been booked into Pierce County Jail as of 2 p.m. Thursday.
Special Assistant Attorney General Patty Eakes and Assistant Attorney General Kent Liu will lead the trial team, the agency said.
Asked if there was any reason to think the case might be transferred to a jurisdiction other than Pierce County Superior Court later on, spokesperson Brionna Aho with the Attorney General’s Office said: “There is no motion to change venue currently pending.”
The murder charges have a standard sentencing range of 10 to 18 years in prison if the defendant has no prior criminal history, the agency said, and for the manslaughter charge it’s 6.5 to 8.5 years.
Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man, died March 3, 2020 at 96th Street South and Ainsworth Avenue as police restrained him.
Video showed him saying: “I can’t breathe, sir, I can’t breathe.”
He died from lack of oxygen and his death was ruled a homicide. Heart disease and methamphetamine were listed as contributing factors.
Gov. Jay Inslee ordered the State Patrol to investigate his death. The agency turned over a 2,169-page investigation to the Attorney General’s Office in November.
The night he died Ellis played drums at church, hung out with his landlord and her husband after, then walked to a nearby store to get a snack, The News Tribune reported.
Police said Burbank and Collins called to Ellis after they saw him try to grab the door handle of a moving vehicle, according to News Tribune archives. They said Ellis had “superhuman strength,” and that he lifted Collins and threw him to the ground.
Witnesses disputed the police account, and said that Ellis was trying to fight off the officers’ punches and get to a position where he could breath, The News Tribune reported.
“The civilian witnesses’ accounts are corroborated by the video evidence. The video depicts Ellis struggling at times against the officers’ restraints, but does not show Ellis attempting to strike the officers at any point,” the charging papers said Thursday.
Staff writers Allison Needles and Stacia Glenn contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 1:03 PM.
