On a March night in 2020, Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old black man, was
walking back to his sober living home in Tacoma, Washington when he was
confronted by three police officers. Ellis was carrying a box of
raspberry-filled donuts and a bottle of water. The cops claimed they
stopped him because he was walking “erratically.” When Ellis protested,
he was tased and beaten. While on the ground, Ellis was hogtied and
beaten again. The cops took turns kneeling on his back and sitting on
him. Then they wrapped a nylon bag around his face. Less than an hour
after he was accosted by the police, Ellis was dead, a death the Pierce
County medical examiner ruled a homicide. Now the three officers who
tortured and killed Manuel Ellis, Matthew Collins, Christopher “Shane”
Burbank, and Timothy Rankine are going on trial.
Collins and Burbank for second-degree murder and first-degree
manslaughter and Rankine for first-degree manslaughter. The officers
have all been on paid leave since the killing and have collected more
than a million dollars in salary and more in benefits. In the last 50
years, only 6 law enforcement officers have been charged with unlawful
killings in Washington State, half of them in this case.
-- Jeffrey St. Clair, "Roaming Charges: Then They Walked" (COUNTERPUNCH).
