The three Tacoma, Washington police officers charged in the death of Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who died in March 2020 after saying, “I can’t breathe” while handcuffed and restrained on the ground, were all found not guilty on Thursday.
According to the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office, Ellis died of hypoxia, a deficiency of oxygen, which caused his fatal respiratory arrest.
Police said they ran into Ellis while he was walking home and witnessed him pounding on a woman’s car window and trying to open the doors.
Ellis was pronounced dead 40 minutes later by medical professionals.
Officers Matthew Collins, 40, Christopher Burbank, 38, and Timothy Rankine, 35, were charged with first-degree manslaughter. In addition, Collins and Burbank, the first officers to approach Ellis when they reportedly saw him reach for the door of a car as it passed through an intersection, were also charged with second-degree murder.
All three are still employed by the Tacoma Police Department and on paid leave.
According to ABC News, the jury began discussing the case on Dec. 14, but they had to restart twice due to alternate jurors being requested. On Monday, a juror was marked unavailable “due to a family concern,” and on Tuesday, another juror tested positive for COVID-19.
The Seattle Times reported that the trial was the first challenge to Washington’s police accountability law passed in 2021, which expanded the criminal justice commission’s authority to investigate and take licenses away from police officers.
