State cross-examines officer who says he saw no excessive force used on Manuel Ellis
Prosecutors sought Wednesday afternoon to weaken the testimony of a Tacoma police officer who previously told a jury that he didn’t see his colleagues use excessive force against Manuel Ellis on the night Ellis died in 2020.
Officer Masyih Ford, who was partnered with defendant Timothy Rankine the night of March 3, 2020, testified in the morning that he would have intervened if he’d seen any inappropriate uses of force. Under cross-examination by special assistant attorney general Patty Eakes in the afternoon, he said his police training taught him to almost never leave someone in a prone position or put weight in the middle of someone’s back.
Ford and Rankine arrived as backup minutes after the initial struggle, which involved officer Matthew Collins elbow-striking Ellis in the face repeatedly and briefly putting him in a headlock. Officer Christopher Burbank shot him with a series of Taser shocks, and Ellis was pressed to the ground face down with weight on his back.
Ellis had been handcuffed by the time Ford arrived, the officer testified, and seconds later someone requested hobbles to immobilize Ellis’ legs. Ford said he didn’t know who applied the hobbles, but he remembered seeing the patch of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. The officer said the 29-inch-long hobble was looped around both ankles and tightened, and its carabiner went under the handcuffs and was attached back to the restraint, putting Ellis’ legs at a 90-degree angle.
Ford said Ellis wouldn’t have been able to stand up or run away in that position, and he agreed that at that point Ellis was under control and the fight was over. At least a dozen officers had arrived by that time, Ford said. Eakes asked him if, with that many officers, Ellis could have been picked up and brought to a patrol car. Ford said yes.
According to trial testimony, Ellis wasn’t released from the restraints until paramedics from the Tacoma Fire Department arrived. Ford said Ellis didn’t respond to attempts to talk to him, and he “was just laying there” when restraints were removed.
Experts for the prosecution testified that the way Ellis was restrained and the weight of officers taking turns sitting on his back is what killed him.
In a brief voir dire of Ford, an attorney for Burbank, Wayne Fricke, clarified that once hobbles were placed, his client and Collins left Ellis’ side to catch their breath.
Ellis, 33, died of a form of oxygen deprivation caused by physical restraint that night, the county medical examiner determined in 2020. His death was ruled a homicide.
Burbank, Collins and Rankine are charged with first-degree manslaughter in the death of Ellis. Collins and Burbank also face charges of second-degree murder. The defendants have pleaded not guilty, are free on bail and remain on paid leave from the Tacoma Police Department.
How the police encounter with Ellis began has been a central dispute in the trial, but prosecutors have said three eyewitnesses saw what happened from the beginning. Ellis was on the sidewalk while officers were still in their patrol car, and when he was called over, the door swung open, knocking Ellis to the ground. Witnesses testified he didn’t fight back as police subdued him and pressed him to the pavement.
Lawyers for the officers have said nothing their clients did killed Ellis, instead focusing on the methamphetamine in his system and Ellis’ enlarged heart as another explanation for his death.
Ellis told police he couldn’t breathe at least five times, according to trial testimony. Ford said he only heard it once, and someone else at the scene responded with something to the effect of “if you can talk you can breathe.” Ford said the comment sounded sarcastic, and it annoyed him.
Ford said he was trained to recognize when people are having difficulty breathing, but he didn’t tell arriving medical personnel about it, and he wasn’t sure if anyone else did either. He said in hindsight, it seemed it would have been important to tell them.
In the morning, Ford testified that Ellis was overpowering officers Collins and Burbank when he arrived because he was inching them into the street like a worm. On cross examination, Ford said Ellis only moved them a few feet.
Eakes started to ask Ford if Ellis could have been moving with the officers on his back because he couldn’t breathe or to try to relieve the pressure on him, but sustained objections from the defense stopped the line of questioning.
In a redirect examination, Ford told Fricke that Burbank had been his training officer for four weeks when he came to the Tacoma Police Department in 2019. He said they worked in South Tacoma, which wasn’t the easiest area to patrol, but that Burbank was always calm, respectful and treated suspects with dignity.
Ford was excused as a witness at the end of Wednesday’s trial proceedings. Defense testimony will continue Thursday.
This story was originally published November 15, 2023 at 5:17 PM.
