![]() ![]() ![]() Tacoma Police Officer Timothy Rankine during his trial alongside co-defendants Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins in Tacoma, Wash., in September. One officer is heard responding, “Shut the (expletive) up, man.”Īttorneys for the officers argued that Ellis died from a lethal amount of methamphetamine that was in his system as well as a heart condition, not from the officers’ actions. Video showed Ellis addressing the officers as “sir” while telling them he couldn’t breathe. Ellis was already handcuffed facedown when he arrived. Rankine was among the many other officers who responded. Tacoma Police Officer Christopher "Shane" Burbank during his trial alongside co-defendants Matthew Collins and Timothy Rankine in Tacoma, Wash., in September. The video showed Ellis with his hands up in a surrender position as Burbank shot a Taser at his chest and Collins wrapped an arm around his neck from behind. The witnesses - one of whom yelled for the officers to stop attacking Ellis - and a doorbell surveillance camera captured video of parts of the encounter. After what appeared to be a brief conversation between Ellis and the officers, who are both white, Burbank, in the passenger seat, threw open his door, knocking Ellis down, they said. Collins testified that Ellis demonstrated “superhuman strength” by lifting Collins off the ground and throwing him through the air.īut three witnesses testified they saw no such thing. The officers claimed they saw Ellis try to open the door of a passing car at the intersection and he became aggressive when they tried to question him about it. attorney’s office in Seattle said last week that it is reviewing the case the Justice Department can bring prosecutions for federal civil rights violations, but the scope of the review was not disclosed.Įllis, 33, was walking home with doughnuts from a 7-Eleven in Tacoma, about 30 miles south of Seattle, when he passed a patrol car stopped at a red light, with Collins and Burbank inside. “Everyone in the community should be upset by this.” “The worst TPD officers are also the highest paid TPD officers!” Ericksen wrote. He noted that the officers had already been paid about $1.5 million total while being on leave for nearly four years. In an email, Matthew Ericksen, an attorney for Ellis’ family, called it “perverse” and said the officers were “effectively being rewarded” for his death.
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