Detective who interviewed Tacoma police accused of killing Manuel Ellis takes the stand

Lawyers for three Tacoma police officers on trial for the death of Manuel Ellis on Monday afternoon questioned a detective who interviewed the officers in the days after Ellis’ death.

Lt. Byron Brockway of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department testified that after he interviewed the officers involved, he changed the title of his case from “death investigation” to “aggravated assault of a public official.” Brockway also testified that investigators from the Sheriff’s Department failed to find or collect witness cell phone videos before the conclusion of its three-month investigation of Ellis’ death.

The investigation also failed to identify a sheriff’s deputy who helped restrain Ellis until the night before the completed investigation was due to be presented to prosecutors.

Early in the investigation, sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer, who has since been elected Pierce County sheriff, denied officers placed “knees on necks” or restrained Ellis in dangerous ways.

Eyewitness videos showed police punching and wrestling with Ellis and captured him saying he couldn’t breathe multiple times, and the witnesses who took them have testified at trial that the officers’ accounts of Ellis aggressively initiating the incident were false. The eyewitnesses consistently described the officers as the aggressors.

Gov. Jay Inslee criticized the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department’s investigation and handed it off to the Washington State Patrol, but Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff, who is presiding over the trial, has limited what can be said in front of the jury about the investigation.

Ellis died March 3, 2020, after repeatedly telling officers he could not breathe while they continued to apply pressure as he was prone on the pavement near an intersection where Tacoma police officers Matthew Collins and Christopher “Shane” Burbank say they saw him try to open the door of a passing car. The Pierce County Medical Examiner ruled Ellis’ death a homicide caused by oxygen deprivation from physical restraint – a ruling the Sheriff’s Department was unaware of for at least two weeks until The News Tribune published it. Lawyers for the officers blame the high level of methamphetamine in Ellis’ system combined with a heart irregularity.

Collins, 40, Burbank, 38, and Timothy Rankine, 34, are all on trial for second-degree manslaughter. Collins and Burbank also are charged with second-degree murder. All three have pleaded not guilty, are free on bail and remain employed by the Tacoma Police Department on paid leave.

On Monday morning, the jury heard recorded interviews with detectives from Collins and Burbank in the days after Ellis’s death. Both Collins and Burbank told detectives Ellis was the aggressor, but their accounts of how the struggle began had inconsistencies. Collins said Ellis started the scrum by hoisting him off the ground and throwing him through the air to land on his back. But Burbank told detectives that when he suspected Ellis might be contemplating attacking Collins, Burbank flung open the passenger’s door of a police cruiser, knocking Ellis to the ground.

Eyewitness videos show Burbank and Collins using a Taser on Ellis, applying a chokehold, striking him repeatedly and pressing him to the ground.

Testimony ended for the day with Cedric Armstrong, who operates the sober-living home where Ellis resided at the time of his death, on the witness stand. Ellis was free on bail awaiting trial on a robbery charge when he met Armstrong at a counseling center.

“He had approached me and said, ‘Hey man, I know you don’t know me, but I’m trying to get off these streets. I don’t have any money. What can you do?’” Armstrong testified.

“I said, ‘I’ve got a room for you,’” Armstrong said. “He just kind of broke down.”

Armstrong testified to attending church with Ellis on the night that he died.

“Manny was really happy that he went to the revival…,” Armstrong said. “He didn’t seem like he was off in any way.”

He said Ellis did not appear to be under the influence of drugs when he last saw him around 10 p.m., less than an hour before he encountered police.

The trial is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning in Pierce County Superior Court when a substance abuse counselor who treated Ellis is expected to testify.