The family of Manuel Ellis is claiming that they are the victims of witness intimidation as the trial of the police officers charged with killing the 33-year-old gets underway.
Ellis died in police custody after being beaten, shocked, choked, hogtied and had a spit mask placed over his head while being detained on a Tacoma, Washington, street on March 3, 2020.
The Seattle Times reports that Ellis’ mother, Marcia Carter-Patterson, reported she was “scared, very scared” before taking the witness stand on Monday during the trial of 40-year-old Matthew Collins, Christopher “Shane” Burbank, 38, and 34-year-old Timothy Rankine on Monday.
The three police officers are on trial for first-degree manslaughter in connection to Ellis’ death, with Collins and Burbank also charged with second-degree murder. The three men are out on bond and receiving paid leave, and Carter-Patterson told the Times that she found a tracking device on her vehicle last week.
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The mother said she noticed the tracker when it fell off of her car as she was getting out on Oct. 6, just days after opening statements in the trial were heard on Oct. 3. The attorney general’s office sent an investigator to pick up the tracker, and Carter-Patterson said that she was now staying with relatives as the trial continues because she is afraid. Carter-Patterson said her vehicle has since had two tires slashed. The three officers’ attorneys deny their clients knew about the device or slashed tires.
Ellis’ sister, Monèt Carter-Mixon, said the tire slashing and tracking device is “witness intimidation.”
“What has my mother done to deserve this, besides have a dead son?” she told the newspaper.
Despite several witnesses saying Ellis was not aggressive during the arrest, the three officers have claimed he had “superhuman strength” when they accosted him, causing them to use a Taser, choke and punch Ellis as well as hogtie him and put a spit cap over his head while ignoring his pleas that he could not breathe.
Ellis’ family was unanimously awarded a $4 million settlement by the Pierce County Council two years following his death after the medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide. The medical examiner noted that physical restraint and the spit mask were major contributors to Ellis’ death. Methamphetamine intoxication and heart disease were also contributing factors.
The defense in the trial is focusing on the high levels of methamphetamine in Ellis’ system as well as his heart condition as the causes of the man’s death. The prosecution contends that the three officers suffocated Ellis while using excessive force.
Carter-Patterson told the outlet that while she was afraid, she would not let the intimidation stop her testimony. “I’m not going to be intimidated,” she declared. Carter-Patterson testified that she’d spoken to her son just two hours before his fatal encounter with the three officers. She learned about his death the next day.
“It was the worst day of my life,” testified Carter-Patterson. “I lost it because I didn’t think that it was true.”
The family’s attorney, James Bible, told the outlet that the family has been the focus of harsh criticism and intimidation. Bible said that Tacoma Police Department personnel and the sheriff’s department staffers secretly surveilled the family as well as supporters and another witness, Sara McDowell. McDowell recorded one of the cellphone videos of the arrest and was targeted with a restraining order that was later dismissed by the judge.
“The intimidation they’ve experienced is not new,” said Bible. “From the minute they stood up for the memory of their deceased loved one, they have been the focus of the harshest criticism and intimidation you can imagine.”
McDowell testified that she’d never seen police officers act the way they did with Ellis, according to King 5 News. Ellis had been walking home from the store when the police called him over to their vehicle.
“He was just taking a stroll,” said another witness, Keyon Lowery. Both McDowell and Lowery were behind Burbank’s patrol car at the intersection, where the officers attacked Ellis after he began to walk away from their patrol car. Lowery told the court that he did not see any aggression from Ellis and exited his vehicle to tell the officers “they were in the wrong.”
Jurors heard McDowell say that she saw Ellis turn around as one of the police officers opened the patrol door and knocked Ellis to his knees. She added that the other officer also got out of the patrol car and body-slammed Ellis to the ground.
”It wasn’t right. I’ve never seen that happen before,” McDowell testified this week. “I’ve never seen a cop do that to anybody, so it was like the worst thing I had ever seen. It was scary. It wasn’t OK. … What I had seen scared me, and I didn’t see any need for it, so I wanted to make sure that whatever happened was on tape,” she continued, adding that one of the officers punched Ellis “over and over” eight to 10 times.
“I never seen him fight back … When I seen him at the end he seemed, like, out of breath, like he said ‘help,’ from what I heard,” she said. “To me, I assumed he was just out of breath, tired, had gotten beat.”
McDowell also said that when she saw the news and heard how the police said the arrest went down, she sent the video to Ellis’ family, not the police. “They’re the ones that did it,” she recalled. “I wanted to find his family and let them do what they thought was best.”
