5th Tacoma officer helped restrain Manuel Ellis before his death, report says
A fifth Tacoma police officer was involved in restraining Manuel Ellis in the moments before he died, according to a Washington State Patrol investigation.
As Ellis lay handcuffed and hobbled on the street after a minutes-long struggle with officers March 3, Officer Armando Farinas placed a mesh spit mask over his head.
That’s one of the details to emerge from more than 2,169 pages of the State Patrol investigation released Wednesday.
It’s important because “physical restraint, positioning and the placement of a mask over the mouth is a significant factor, and possibly the most important factor” in Ellis’ death, former Pierce County Medical Examiner Thomas Clark wrote in the autopsy report.
Spit masks, also known as spit hoods, are made of a loose, breathable material. They are meant to keep people from spitting on or biting law enforcement officers and potentially exposing them to diseases or injuring them.
Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man, died at the intersection of 96th Street South and Ainsworth Avenue South due to lack of oxygen.
Methamphetamine and heart disease were listed as contributing factors. It has been ruled a homicide.
His death sparked outrage after videos taken by witnesses became public and Ellis could be heard saying, “I can’t breathe, sir, I can’t breathe.”
It echoed the words of George Floyd, who died May 25 death in Minneapolis as a white police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck.
An officer on scene responded by telling Ellis to “Shut the (expletive) up,” records say.
Farinas’ role
It was not immediately clear why officials did not previously release information about Farinas’ role in the incident.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene that night to handle the investigation and identified four officers as being involved. After details of the encounter surfaced in June, including that a sheriff’s deputy held one of Ellis’ legs while he was hobbled, Ellis’ family demanded an independent investigation and state officials gave the case to the State Patrol.
Monet Carter-Mixon, Ellis’ sister, said Wednesday she is furious that new details are emerging nine months after her brother was killed. It furthered her belief there has been a police cover-up in what happened the night Ellis died.
“We are deeply disappointed that a fifth person was intimately involved in the murder of Manuel Ellis,” said James Bible, the family’s attorney.
“We are shocked that this person was not put on administrative leave along with the other officers. We are convinced that but for an independent investigation, none of this would have come to light because the Tacoma Police Department and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department would have buried it so deep that others would not have been able to find it.”
Following Ellis’ death, four officers were placed on paid administrative duty per standard procedure. They are Christopher Burbank, 34; Matthew Collins , 37; Masyih Ford, 28; and Timothy Rankine, 31.
Burbank and Collins are white. Ford is Black. Rankine is Asian.
They returned to duty two weeks later but were again placed on leave in June after the Medical Examiner’s report was released.
Farinas has not been placed on administrative leave. Neither has sheriff’s Det. Sgt. Gary Sanders, who held Ellis’ leg as he was hobbled.
Few details were immediately known about Farinas other than that he is 26 and joined the department just over three years ago.
‘Superhuman strength’
The fatal encounter between Ellis and police lasted only minutes.
Burbank and Collins were patrolling the city when they spotted Ellis standing in the intersection, allegedly grabbing at the door handle of a passing car. He was walking home from a convenience store after buying donuts and a bottle of water.
Investigators have said Ellis was the aggressor, lifting Collins by the vest and throwing him to the ground and flailing wildly as they tried to restrain him.
“This guy had superhuman strength,” Collins later told sheriff’s investigators.
Witnesses have contradicted the police account, saying Ellis never appeared aggressive and was not resisting.
Ford and Rankine were the first backup officers to arrive and helped get control of Ellis so he could be handcuffed and hobbled.
After he was restrained, Burbank said Ellis was trying to spit on officers so someone suggested putting a spit mask on him.
When Farinas arrived, Ellis “was alert and breathing and had blood on his face and coming from his mouth,” according to a police report written by Farinas. “Due to his assaultive behavior, I placed a spit hood over the subject’s head to protect everyone on scene from a possible exposure.”
The involved officers couldn’t remember how long Ellis was restrained. The spit mask was estimated to be on for six minutes, records say. A sheriff’s detective later called Clark, the former Medical Examiner, to say there was an error and the spit mask was only on Ellis for 1-3 minutes.
Clark spoke with State Patrol investigators, but declined to have the interview recorded.
“In this case, the details of restraint weren’t clear at time of autopsy and keep changing,” Clark said, according to an investigator’s notes. “This is problematic.”
Burbank, Collins, Ford, Rankine and Farinas all declined to be interviewed by State Patrol investigators or answer follow-up questions. They were only interviewed by sheriff’s investigators.
Neither Burbank nor Collins mentioned hearing Ellis say, “I can’t breathe,” during their interviews with sheriff’s investigators. In fact, both officers said Ellis spoke no words during the struggle and only grunted or growled.
However, Ford and Rankine both talked about Ellis saying he couldn’t breathe.
Ellis spoke those words after Rankine knelt on his back, reports say.
“But he said it in a very, not in a distressful voice, in almost a very calm normal voice, which I thought was super weird. I remember telling the individual, I was like ‘If you’re talking to me, you can breathe just fine,’” according to a transcript of Rankine’s interview.
Shortly afterward, police rolled Ellis on his side.
He was dead moments later.
The Attorney General’s Office is reviewing the case to determine whether the officers should face criminal charges.
This story was originally published December 30, 2020 at 8:21 PM.
