Tacoma officer charged in the death of Manuel Ellis takes the stand in his own defense

Editor’s note: This story has been updated throughout after afternoon testimony.

Matthew Collins, one of three Tacoma police officers on trial for the death of Manuel Ellis, took the unusual step Monday of testifying in his own defense, telling jurors he was hyperfocused on handcuffing Ellis the night of the fatal encounter and never heard him say he couldn’t breathe.

Even had he heard Ellis express that he couldn’t breathe, Collins testified he wouldn’t have done anything differently.

“Anything that someone would say to us until they’re complying with us, with hands behind their back [to cuff], would be irrelevant to me,” Collins said.

In cross-examination, special prosecutor Patty Eakes confronted Collins with a recording of him telling Ellis to “shut the [expletive] up,” after Ellis pleaded for air at least five times while officers continued to apply force, according to recordings entered as evidence.

Collins said he only heard “animal noises” from Ellis but acknowledged it must’ve been his voice on the recording because his partner and co-defendant Officer Christopher “Shane” Burbank, eschews swearing.

The dramatic testimony from one of the three charged officers opened the ninth, and potentially final, week of the historic trial.

In his testimony, Collins lamented Ellis’ fate.

“For police officers, it’s the worst thing that can happen. In this case, undoubtedly Manny was in the wrong, but at the end of the day his mother lost a child, his sister lost a brother,” he said.

He also said the incident changed his life in unimaginable ways.

“I didn’t think in my wildest nightmares that the state would come after us for this,” he said.

Ellis, 33, died March 3, 2020, after repeatedly telling police he couldn’t breathe. The Pierce County Medical Examiner ruled his death a homicide caused by oxygen deprivation from physical restraint. The officers’ lawyers have argued that the high level of methamphetamine in Ellis’ system coupled with a heart condition caused his death.

Collins, 40, Burbank, 38, and Officer Timothy Rankine, 35, are on trial for first-degree manslaughter. Collins and Burbank, the first officers to encounter Ellis when they say he was trying to open the door of a car as it passed through an intersection, face an additional charge of second-degree murder. Rankine told detectives he arrived soon afterward and continued to sit on Ellis even after he said he couldn’t breathe.

All three officers have pleaded not guilty, are free on bail and remain employed by the Tacoma Police Department on paid leave.

Their trial marks the first courtroom test of Initiative 940, a voter-approved police accountability measure that removed legal barriers to charging police officers for on-duty deaths. Criminal charges against officers under those circumstances have resulted in charges just six times over the past century in Washington state.

It’s unusual for defendants to testify, particularly in manslaughter and murder cases, because it exposes defendants to questions about their criminal histories. That generally doesn’t apply to police officers, and Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff has excluded testimony about past evidence of misconduct.

In testimony Monday, Collins insisted he never heard Ellis say that he couldn’t breathe. At least three of the instances were recorded when only Collins and Burbank were present, and Rankine’s partner, Masiyh Ford, testified that he heard Ellis say he couldn’t breathe in the presence of Burbank and Collins.

“He’s fighting us,” Collins said. “We can deal with the air thing after we get him in handcuffs.”

Collins testified that he and Burbank came upon Ellis at a south Tacoma intersection. He became concerned as he approached their police cruiser because Ellis was sweaty and his eyes were wide open.

Collins said Ellis’ “body language” signaled that he was “fixating on Officer Burbank.” Then, Collins said, Ellis threatened to punch Burbank and smacked the passenger’s window of their police cruiser, where Burbank sat.

“As soon as he started punching the window, I was sprinting out of the car,” Collins said.

He claims he rounded the front of their police cruiser, where Ellis picked him off the ground and threw him through the air.

Eyewitnesses testified earlier in the trial that the violence began when Burbank flung open his door, knocking Ellis to the ground. Burbank’s statement to detectives days after Ellis’ death makes no mention of the scene Collins described. Collins said Ellis exhibited “superhuman strength.”

Eyewitnesses, including two who filmed cellphone video, said Ellis did nothing to provoke the officers. Their videos, which have been shown to the jury numerous times, show Collins applying a neck hold to Ellis, slamming him to the ground and striking at him with elbows. They show Collins at one point lift and slam Ellis to the ground, then punch him repeatedly before Burbank delivered three Taser strikes to Ellis’ torso.

After the eyewitnesses had left, Rankine and Ford arrived along with about 20 more officers from various law enforcement agencies. Ellis was handcuffed with his hands behind his back, prone on his stomach, hobbled by a strap attached to his cuffed wrists and had a nylon spit hood placed over his face.

Collins testified that he believed Ellis was suffering from “excited delirium,” a controversial term embraced by law enforcement but widely rejected by the medical profession. Major medical and psychological associations reject the existence of excited delirium, and California has banned it as a cause of death. Yet it’s still taught at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission’s police academy.

Collins described Ellis as impervious to pain and extraordinarily strong — both hallmarks of excited delirium from Collins’ training — yet Ellis can be heard shrieking in pain when Collins and Burbank strike him on the videos.

Collins, a married father of four, testified that he has been passionate about Brazilian jujitsu for two decades, including teaching grappling tactics to his Army unit. Collins spent almost eight years in the military and was deployed for combat multiple times before joining the Tacoma Police Department in 2015.

The trial is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning in Pierce County Superior Court with Collins still on the witness stand. Rankine’s lawyers have said he plans to testify as well. Burbank’s lawyers have been mum about whether he intends to testify.

This story was originally published December 4, 2023 at 12:36 PM.