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The Washington state attorney general’s office has filed felony charges against three police officers in the killing of Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old Black father of two, who, moments before his death, called out: “I can’t breathe.”
This is the first time the office has filed criminal charges against police officers for unlawful use of deadly force.
Tacoma police officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins were charged with second-degree murder, while Timothy Rankine was charged with first-degree manslaughter. The maximum sentence for both offenses is life in prison. It was unclear whether any of the three officers had retained a lawyer.
The decision came more than a year after the Pierce county medical examiner’s office ruled Ellis’s death a homicide, and followed months of contradicting information from law enforcement officials, who framed Ellis as the aggressor, and eyewitness testimony and video that showed the opposite.
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