Witness: Police were aggressors in fatal encounter. ‘Manuel Ellis wasn’t doing anything’

Eyewitness testimony poked holes in a central premise of the defense’s case on Tuesday in the trial of three Tacoma police officers charged in the March 2020 death of Manuel Ellis.

Sara McDowell, who recorded video of the officers roughly handling Ellis, and Keyon Lowery, McDowell’s former boyfriend, described police as the aggressors, contradicting what the officers told detectives and dashing the defense claim that nobody had seen how the fatal interaction began.

“When I saw Manuel not doing anything, and him get attacked like that, it wasn’t right,” McDowell, 26, testified. “I’d never seen police do anything like that. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It was scary. It wasn’t OK.”

Ellis died March 3, 2020. The Pierce County Medical Examiner ruled his death a homicide caused by oxygen deprivation from physical restraint. Prosecutors allege Ellis told police at least seven times that he couldn’t breathe, but they continued to apply force. The officers’ defense attorneys have spotlighted the medical examiner’s finding that Ellis had a potentially lethal level of methamphetamine in his system as an alternative explanation for how he died.

Officers Matthew Collins, 40, and Christopher Burbank, 38, were the first to encounter Ellis. They are the officers who McDowell and Lowery saw physically engaging with Ellis. Both are charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter. Officer Timothy Rankine, 34, arrived at the scene after McDowell and Lowery had already left. He is accused of continuing to sit on Ellis for minutes despite Ellis’s plea that he could not breathe. All three officers have pleaded not guilty. They are free on bail and remain employed by the Tacoma Police Department on paid leave.

Collins, who was driving on the night Ellis died, told detectives within days of Ellis’s death that the physical altercation began when Ellis charged at him, hoisted him into the air and caused him to land on his back. Burbank told detectives a different story. He said when Ellis assumed an aggressive stance toward Collins, Burbank slammed his patrol car’s door into Ellis.

McDowell and Lowery contradicted the officers’ stories with virtually identical accounts. They said Ellis was casually walking away from the police cruiser when it appeared someone inside called him over to talk. As he was near the passenger door, it swung open and knocked Ellis to his knees. That’s when McDowell started recording video.

It showed what McDowell described: The officer from the passenger’s seat, Burbank, was on top of Ellis and striking him with closed fists, and, Collins, the driver, joined by lifting Ellis and slamming him to the ground.

“[The officers] were in the wrong,” Lowery said.

“Manuel Ellis wasn’t doing anything” to provoke the officers’ violence, McDowell said.

Burbank’s lawyer, Brett Purtzer, cross-examined McDowell about an online spat she’d had with a supporter of the officers in which McDowell wrote that she was “lying” to testify against the officers. McDowell said that was a typo, and she intended to write that she was “dying” to tell her story.

Testimony is scheduled to resume in Pierce County Superior Court on Wednesday when an audio expert for the prosecution and a woman who provided videos of the scene are expected to testify.

This story was originally published October 10, 2023 at 4:21 PM.