TACOMA, Wash. — A pulmonary expert was called by the state in the trial for the death of Manuel Ellis on Tuesday.
Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man, died in Tacoma police custody after a confrontation with officers on the night of March 3, 2020. Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank face second-degree murder charges and first-degree manslaughter charges. Officer Timothy Rankine faces a first-degree manslaughter charge.
Dr. Curtis Veal specializes in pulmonary medicine, internal medicine and critical care. He is currently a doctor in the cardiovascular ICU at Swedish’s Cherry Hill campus.
Whether Dr. Veal would actually get to appear in front of the jury was not immediately clear at the beginning of the morning court session. Defense attorney Mark Conrad, representing Officer Rankine, took issue with multiple parts of Veal’s report and complained about the length of time the state was taking to present its case, citing redundancies in expert witness testimonies.
The prosecution maintained that Veal’s testimony would be relevant to the jury, saying previous experts did not specifically touch on how Ellis’ pulmonary system was impacted by the weight of an officer or by officers that was applied to his back for several minutes at a time.
Officer Rankine's statement
In his statement to investigators, Rankine described placing one knee up near Ellis’ neck with another knee lower down on his back to further subdue Ellis after he was placed in restraints. At some point, Ellis was then shifted into a recovery position on his side, but quickly placed back into a prone (face down) position when he started moving. Rankine then applied one knee to Ellis’ lower back, by his own description. Before Rankine was applying weight to Ellis’ back, Officer Christopher Burbank was sitting on Ellis.
Prosecutors said they expected Veal to testify that Ellis’ breathing was restricted to the point where his heart failed – which does echo the conclusions of two previous medical experts to appear on the witness stand.
The judge agreed with concerns raised by the defense that Veal’s testimony seemed redundant. The state then called Dr. Veal to the witness stand to offer proof of evidence outside the presence of the jury.
'His heart was probably also not working normally at that time'
Outside the presence of the jury, Veal explained that movement of the diaphragm, ribs and chest wall are all vital to a person’s ability to breathe. If something is inhibiting a person from elevating their ribs, they won’t be able to perform the necessary muscle movements required for inhaling, he said.
Veal noted that Ellis was mainly in the prone position with someone on his back for the better part of ten minutes until fire medics arrived at the scene – aside from a brief period of time when Ellis was rolled onto his right side, also known as the recovery position.
Rankine said that he took Ellis’ pulse while he was in the recovery position and it was only 80 beats per minute; abnormally low for someone who had just been in a physical altercation and was on methamphetamine. To Veal, that indicated Ellis was already having an irregular cardiac reaction at that point in time.
Veal said if someone has an intact brain stem, they should begin to breathe normally once the pressure is removed from their abdomen. However, Veal said by the time Ellis was taken out of the prone position for good when fire medics arrived, it was already too late.
“I think that by the time that happened, he had already become completely unresponsive and it was affecting the profusion (blood flow) of his brain, and he did not any longer have a normal ventilatory drive,” Veal said. “His heart was probably also not working normally at that time.”
Veal said the only explanation he could offer was that the pressure applied to Ellis’ back was enough to limit Ellis’ ability to breathe, leading his pulse to slow and eventually stop.
Judge Bryan Chushoff also asked Veal several questions, including how much body weight applied to Ellis’ back would have been fatal to him, how long that weight would have to be applied and whether Ellis would have succumbed more quickly due to factors like his heart condition, his oxygen demand and the meth in his system.
Chushoff also asked Veal if Ellis could have been attempting a ruse by yelling he couldn’t breathe to try and get officers off his back initially, but meant it genuinely at a later point in time.
Chushoff eventually ruled that Veal could testify in front of the jury, but that he could not speak to Ellis’ cause of death or offer statistics from medical literature that he included in his report. Veal began testimony in front of the jury after the morning recess.
In front of the jury
On Tuesday afternoon, much of the conversation was dominated by discussion of at what point Ellis became hypoxic, along with when he was placed into the recovery position after he said, "I can't breathe" and how much time passed before Ellis was returned to a face-down position while in restraints.
When Ellis was struggling with multiple officers, Veal says he didn't believe Ellis was hypoxic, a life-threatening state where body tissue is impacted by a lack of oxygen. However, Veal also denies the idea Ellis was lying about not being able to breathe at this point.
“I have no reason to believe he was making it up the first time,” Veal said.
Veal said the perceived issue of public safety was handled with the use of restraints and that injury to officers could have been mitigated.
“I think at the point he had his hands and feet restrained, turned on his side and if he began thrashing around, I do not believe he could’ve injured anybody if they all just formed a big circle around him and step back and let him tire himself out,” Veal said.
The witness report from a Washington State Patrol trooper who was on scene claims Ellis was on his stomach in handcuffs, hitting his head on the pavement and screaming. At this point, Veal said, it is possible Ellis was hypoxic.
Rankine's attorney Conrad said eight minutes and 31 seconds pass from when officers contact Ellis to when Rankine arrived on scene. When he did, he said Rankine saw a gun magazine, which later was found to belong to one of the officers, and assumed it belonged to Ellis, which prompted the further restraint efforts.
Another point of questioning surrounded when Ellis was moved from being face down, into a recovery position and then moved back to being face down.
Rankine and his partner officer both said in their statements that Ellis said "I can't breathe" in a "remarkably calm fashion" while in the prone position and then moved him onto his side. Sometime later, officers rolled Ellis into the recovery position a second time, however, it is unknown how long Ellis was face down and said he couldn't breathe before officers rolled him onto his side for the second time.
After the second time he was moved into recovery position, the partner officer's report, which was read in court, stated Ellis was "looking through [him]" and that from that point onward, Ellis was unresponsive.
Veal is contracted with the state to earn $550 a day for work on the case and $7,200 for a full day of testimony. In total, he has charged the state about $15,000 to $20,000, which he said will likely rise to $35,000 by the conclusion of his participation in the trial.
Veal's testimony resumes on Wednesday morning.
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.