TACOMA, Wash. — Jury members in the trial for the death of Manuel Ellis heard audio recordings from the night Manuel Ellis died, followed by an eyewitness account of the incident from a former pizza delivery driver on Tuesday afternoon.
Ellis died following a confrontation with Tacoma police officers on March 3, 2020.
Officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins are charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter. Officer Timothy Rankine is charged with first-degree manslaughter.
'First word that comes to mind would be just panic'
Seth Cowden, a former pizza delivery driver in Tacoma, took to the witness stand on Tuesday afternoon. Cowden, now age 22, was returning to the pizza store on March 3, 2020, when he approached the intersection of South 96th Street and Ainsworth Avenue.
He saw a Tacoma police car stopped at the intersection and saw Ellis walking near the car like a "casual stroll," Cowden said.
He then turned as if he was responding to his name being called, Cowden said. The police car's passenger side door opened and Ellis went out of view, he said. Cowden said he saw both officers exit the car as what he described as a "melee" began between Ellis and the officers.
As he began recording, Cowden said he heard screaming and tussling of both Tacoma officers and Ellis.
"It was in my nature to simply record it… if anything to show people because I didn’t think anyone would believe me," said Cowden.
The officers restrained Ellis and put him in a kind of head lock, he added. Cowden testified that he never saw Ellis hit the police car, nor strike or punch either of the officers.
“First word that comes to mind would be just panic,” Cowden said of Ellis’ reaction during the altercation. “I know that he was the one I could hear scream the most. I could tell the difference between the officer and Manuel Ellis screaming just cause his was out of fear and was more sporadic, where the officers were giving orders, basically.”
Before he left the scene, Cowden said he remembers seeing Ellis on his knees as an officer stood behind him, restraining him. Cowden said Ellis' arms were up when the second officer fired a Taser at him.
“They were at first up and then as he got Tased, Manuel Ellis’ arms were trying to constrict and go back to his chest, almost as if he was trying to just hold himself," Cowden said.
His video was recorded on Snapchat and he saved a copy to his phone, Cowden said. He showed the video to his parents, sent the video to his manager and also sent it to friends via Snapchat. At a later date, Cowden saw a newspaper with Ellis’ name and the cross streets of that night. He read the article and realized it was the same incident he had recorded, he testified.
Cowden reached out to attorney James Bible and shared what information he had. Bible also accompanied Cowden to an interview with the Washington State Patrol about the incident, by Cowden's asking.
Cowden's testimony resumes on Wednesday morning.
13 minutes
On Tuesday, the state called a forensic audio expert, David Hallimore, to the witness stand.
Hallimore has nearly three decades of experience as a forensic audio expert. He worked as a police officer, and then a forensic audio expert for a law enforcement agency before starting his own company in 2008. Hallimore said his experience allows him to better analyze and discern what was said on a piece of audio than a layperson.
Forensic audio is primarily used in determining what is speech versus what is noise, he said.
Part of the state’s case hinges on whether or not the officers who are on trial heard Ellis say that he couldn’t breathe. Prosecutors say officers violated their duty of care by not getting Ellis medical attention at an earlier point and not making sure that Ellis was able to breathe. Prosecutors noted in one of his interviews that Officer Rankine admitted to hearing Ellis say he couldn’t breathe.
Jurors listened to a 13-minute compilation of audio recordings from the March 2020 night, which included dispatch calls, sirens, the voice of previous witness Sara McDowell, and Ellis' and the officers' voices. Some stretches of silence marked times when audio recordings were missing. Jurors were given a transcript of the recordings as a listening aid when the audio was played in court.
On a black screen in the courtroom, large white numbers ticked the passing seconds.
Hallimore was provided with 18 audio recordings and only five were used in the compilation. Hallimore reiterated that he is not testifying about what happened that night, but is determining what is heard in the audio files.
Ellis’ attempts to tell police that he couldn’t breathe were also picked up on video from a doorbell home security camera at the intersection where the confrontation happened.
The state contracted Hallimore to compile a transcript of a timeline of all the audio he was provided from the night Ellis died, including from the doorbell security video and video from a bystander to the confrontation between Ellis and police.
Transcript disagreements
The defense and prosecution spent the morning session arguing about what could be included in that transcript outside the presence of the jury. Both sides argued to the judge about what was intelligible and what wasn’t based on the audio recordings Hallimore was presented.
The defense took issue with multiple instances where Hallimore noted Ellis said “can’t breathe” or “breathe, sir,” on the transcript, noting that in previous iterations of the transcript, Hallimore himself indicated he was not completely confident in what he heard. The defense also noted that Hallimore included additional instances of Ellis saying “can’t breathe” after corresponding with the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, who had asked for him to listen for that phrase in particular parts of the audio recordings.
Hallimore noted that his process of identifying what was said is subjective and he does take what others hear into account when doing his work, but noted he would not include something on the transcript that he did not hear himself, and that he has the final say in what’s included.
The defense also took issue with some of Hallimore’s methods. Hallimore said he is practiced in audio enhancement and what he calls “critical listening,” and that he is more adept in picking apart certain aspects of audio recording than a layperson could be. Defense counsel for Officer Timothy Rankine, Mark Conrad, asked whether critical listening could be considered scientific, and Hallimore said he could agree conditionally that it is not.
As with other expert witnesses called by the state, the defense asked Hallimore how much he would be paid for his participation in the state’s case. Hallimore estimated it would be approximately $20,000.
The judge then asked Hallimore whether he could tell from the recordings if the officers could have heard Ellis saying he couldn’t breathe. Hallimore said there are too many variables to discern what people at the scene heard, including what they were paying attention to at the time Ellis said those things and what other noises were happening.
The judge decided to remove one instance where Hallimore quoted Ellis saying “breathe, sir” in the audio timeline and instead have it marked as “unintelligible.” The judge also directed sounds Hallimore had identified as screams or yells to be marked instead as “unintelligible” and directed exclamation points to be removed from the transcript.
Background on the case
On March 3, 2020, Ellis was walking home when he stopped to speak with Tacoma Police Officers Burbank and Collins, who were in their patrol car, according to probable cause documents.
Witnesses said Ellis turned to walk away, but the officers got out of their car and knocked Ellis to his knees. All witnesses told investigators they did not see Ellis strike the officers.
Other responding officers told investigators that Burbank and Collins reported Ellis was “goin’ after a car” in the intersection and punched the patrol car's windows.
Witness video shows officers repeatedly hitting Ellis. Collins put Ellis into a neck restraint, and Burbank tasered Ellis’ chest, according to prosecutors.
Home security camera footage captured Ellis saying, “Can’t breathe, sir. Can’t breathe."
Rankine, who was the first backup officer to arrive, applied pressure to Ellis' back and held him in place while Ellis was "hogtied" with a hobble, according to documents.
When the fire department arrived, Ellis was “unconscious and unresponsive,” according to documents.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner ruled Ellis' death a homicide. According to the autopsy report, Ellis also had a fatal amount of methamphetamine in his system.
KING 5 will stream gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial from opening to closing statements. Follow live coverage and watch videos on demand on king5.com, KING 5+ and the KING 5 YouTube channel.