Police wrestle the unarmed Black man to the sidewalk. One officer pushes his face into the pavement as he pleads in vain: “Can’t breathe.”
Still, the trial of the officers charged in Ellis’ case is another example of video footage of a violent arrest possibly playing a critical role in determining whether the police should be held accountable. After what witnesses said appeared to be a brief conversation between Ellis and the officers, Burbank, in the passenger seat, threw open his door, knocking Ellis down. The officers, both white, tackled and punched Ellis, with one stunning him with a Taser as the other held him in a neck restraint.
The three civilian witnesses — a woman in one car, a man in another, and a pizza delivery driver in a third car — all said they never saw Ellis attempt to strike the officers, according to a probable cause statement filed by the Washington attorney general’s office, which is prosecuting the case. “And what these cases show us, especially when there’s video evidence, is that oftentimes the actual narratives of the police officers, whether in police reports, whether they’re testifying, are sometimes inconsistent with the video evidence,” Stinson continued. “And that’s what gets closer scrutiny by the prosecutors and investigators.”