TACOMA, Wash. (NEWSnet/AP) — A jury has cleared three Washington state police officers of all charges in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was shocked and restrained face down on a Tacoma sidewalk.
Two of the officers — Matthew Collins, 40, and Christopher Burbank, 38 — had been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, while Timothy Rankine, 34, was charged with manslaughter.
The jury found the three not guilty on all counts.
[Earlier Report: Tacoma Officers' Trial Begins in Death of Manuel Ellis]
The Pierce County medical examiner ruled Ellis’ death a homicide caused by oxygen deprivation, but lawyers for the officers said a high level of methamphetamine in Ellis’ system and a heart irregularity were to blame.
Witnesses and a doorbell surveillance camera captured video during some of the encounter the night of March 3, 2020.
Ellis’ death became a touchstone for racial justice demonstrators in the Pacific Northwest, but it also coincided with the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in the region and did not garner the attention that the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis did nearly three months later.
The trial, which lasted more than two months, was the first under a 5-year-old state law designed to make it easier to prosecute police accused of wrongfully using deadly force.
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