United States: In the US state of Washington, three (3) police officers have been cleared of all criminal charges on Thursday in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, whose death pulled comparisons with the murder of George Floyd.
Two of the officers, Christopher Burbank, 38, and Matthew Collins, 40, was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, while Timothy Rankine, 34, was charged with manslaughter were acquitted following a ten-week trial, Aljazeera reported.
Ellis died from a deadly amount of methamphetamine in his system, already present in him during the incident, and a pre-existing heart condition, but not from the officer’s actions, argued their attorneys.
About the incident
On March 3, 2020, Manuel Ellis died while in police custody in Tacoma, Washington.
He was walking home with doughnuts from a 7-Eleven in Tacoma, late on March 3, 2020, when he passed a patrol car stopped at a red light, with Collins and Burbank inside.
According to the officers, Ellis tried to open the door of a passing car at the intersection, and he became aggressive when they tried to question him about it. Collins testified of “superhuman strength” demonstrated by Ellis by lifting Collins off the ground and throwing him through the air.
The three witnesses who testified said they saw nothing of such sort while adding not see Ellis trying to hit or do anything aggressive to provoke the officers.
The three witnesses further added that after what appeared to be a brief conversation between Ellis and the officers, who are both white, Burnark in the passenger seat, threw open his door and knocked Ellis down.
At the trial, the footage presented, showed the officers placing Ellis in a chokehold, shooting him with a stun gun, and pinning him down to the street with their body weight. In the video, which has been circulated on the social media, Ellis can be heard begging and telling the officers, “Can’t breathe, sir, can’t breathe.“
Officers had been the instigator, making an unprovoked effort to overpower Ellis, while he was standing on the footpath, argued the prosecution witnesses.
Rankie said at the court, “The only response at that point that I could think of is, ‘If you can talk to me, you can still breathe.”
The reaction from both sides
Matthew Ericksen, a lawyer representing the Ellis family said, “The defence attorneys were allowed to dredge up Manny’s past and repeat to the jury again and again Manny’s prior arrests in 2015 and 2019. That unfairly prejudiced jurors against Manny.”
Collins’ lawyer, Casey Arbenz stated the verdict was “a huge sigh of relief” and reflected that the jurors were willing to look beyond the video, The Seattle Times quoted. Arbenz further added that the officers “should never have been charged.”
Wayne Fricke, representing Officer Burbank, told the court, “This is a situation where (Ellis) created his own death. It was his behavior that forced the officers to use force against him.”
Racial injustice
In the Pacific Northwest, Ellis’ death became a touchstone for racial injustice. The incident coincided with the first COVID-19 outbreak at a nursing home in nearby Kirkland, due to which it could not gather much attention that the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis did around three months later.