Eyewitness testimony Tuesday in the continuing trial of three Tacoma police officers starkly contradicted the picture the officers' lawyers painted.
Defense attorney Brett Purtzer cross-examines Keyon Lowery during the trial of Tacoma Police Officers Christopher Burbank, Matthew Collins and Timothy Rankine in the killing of Manny Ellis at Pierce County Superior Court, Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023, in Tacoma, Wash. Eyewitness testimony Tuesday in the continuing trial three police officers, who are white and Asian American, charged with the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man, starkly contradicted the picture the officers’ lawyers painted.
Lowery said he was in “disbelief" with how the officers acted and said he believed the officers “were in the wrong.”Tacoma Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank, both white, are charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of Ellis on March 3, 2020. Officer Timothy Rankine, who is Asian American, is charged with manslaughter. All three have pleaded not guilty. They are free on bail and remain employed by the Tacoma Police Department on paid leave.
Ellis' death came just weeks before George Floyd’s death under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer triggered a nationwide reckoning on race and policing. Collins told Pierce County sheriff’s detectives that Ellis had attacked him by hurling him through the air to land on his back. Burbank contradicted that account, saying he slammed a police cruiser door into Ellis, knocking him to the ground, because he feared that Ellis might become aggressive toward Collins. Though diverging in details, the officers’ statements both claimed that Ellis had acted aggressively toward them, justifying the force they used against him.
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