The multi-million dollar lawsuit asserts that one of the three Washington State law enforcement officers who were cleared of charges in the 2020 killing of Manny Ellis was wrongfully accused of unlawful and racial misbehavior. The defendants in the case include municipal and state authorities.
The Tacoma police took Ellis into custody in March 2020 after he was allegedly tazed, assaulted, and kept facedown on the pavement while Ellis claimed he couldn’t breathe. Ellis later died in jail.
Ex-Tacoma policeman Timothy Rankine testified last year that he pinned Ellis to the ground.
The police’ legal teams maintained that Ellis’s death was due to heart disease and a fatal dosage of methamphetamine and not to the officers’ negligence. The death was attributed to a loss of oxygen during physical restraint, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner, who ruled the death a homicide.
The initial responding Tacoma police officers, Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins were each charged with two counts of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree murder.
During his closing statement, Jared Ausserer, Collins’s attorney and the first responder to the incident along with Burbank, said that Ellis had been an exemplary brother, son, and uncle, but only when he was sober. We saw a distinct change in him when under the influence of meth.
Although Rankine was acquitted of first-degree manslaughter last December, he asserts that the trial tarnished his image.
Ellis was seen on video from a doorbell security camera raising his hands in a surrender stance as Collins encircled his neck behind his back and Burbank blasted a Taser at his chest. As Ellis kept telling the cops he couldn’t breathe, the footage showed him calling them “sir” on many occasions.
The ex-cop claims that threats were made against him and his family because of his prosecution, which he believes was politically driven. A settlement of $47 million is being sought by Rankine and his wife.
Rankine and the other officers had agreed to quit the police department in January in exchange for $500,000, which, according to his lawyer, hardly covered Rankine’s losses.
Justice Department investigators are looking into possible civil rights crimes in Ellis’s death, while state authorities are looking into the possibility of revoking the officers’ certificates.
The city and the cops are also still facing a federal lawsuit filed by Ellis’ family. Pierce County, which had first investigated Ellis’ death, had a prior settlement with the family for $4 million.