NEWS GLEAMS | Trial for Manuel Ellis Continues; 'Seattle Gay News' Under New Ownership

A roundup of news and announcements we don't want to get lost in the fast-churning news cycle!

by Vee Hua 華婷婷

Trial for the Death of Manuel Ellis Continues in Tacoma

The trial for the death of 33-year-old Black man Manuel Ellis is underway in Tacoma, three and a half years after his death in March 2020. Ellis' death, which took place just a few weeks before the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, was ruled by the Pierce County Medical Examiner as a homicide caused by "hypoxia" — a lack of oxygen, which, in this case, was caused by physical restraints.

Officers Matthew Collins and Christopher Burbank are charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter; officer Timothy Rankine is charged with first-degree manslaughter. All three officers are free on bail and have remained on the Tacoma Police Department on paid leave; they have pleaded not guilty.

Both the defense and prosecution have differing accounts of what happened during the encounter, which took place at a Tacoma intersection. "The Pierce County Sheriff's Office repeated the officers' version of events for weeks until eyewitness testimony and video evidence uncovered by Ellis' sister, Mont Carter-Mixon, told a different story," reported the Emerald. "Eyewitnesses shared that Ellis walked past the police vehicle peacefully and Burbank aggressively swung his door open as Ellis was passing by and knocked him down. Burbank began tasing Ellis multiple times while Collins put him in a 'lateral vascular neck restraint' from behind, a chokehold that constitutes deadly force. Across the street, a home surveillance system caught footage of the interaction, with Ellis pleading and repeatedly telling officers, 'I can't breathe.'"

The Tacoma News Tribune reported, "Sara McDowell, who recorded video of the officers roughly handling Ellis, and Keyon Lowery, McDowell's former boyfriend, described police as the aggressors, contradicting what the officers told detectives and dashing the defense claim that nobody had seen how the fatal interaction began." Both eyewitnesses had similar accounts and contradicted the original accounts presented by the officers; McDowell also recorded the incident with her phone.

Defense attorneys argue that Ellis was experiencing "excited delirium" at the time of the arrest and was high on methamphetamines, which was confirmed by the Pierce County Medical Examiner. On Monday, Ellis' mother, Marcia Carter-Patterson, confirmed a previous testimony from his sister, Mont Carter-Mixon, that Ellis had been residing in a sober living facility at the time of his death and that he faced mental health challenges. However, both stated that Carter-Patterson had spoken to Ellis an hour and a half before the incident and that he was in a good mood.

Because a Pierce County deputy participated in the incident, Washington State Patrol took over the investigation; the Washington State attorney general then took over prosecution for the case. The Ellis trial will continue four days a week over the next two months, with jury deliberation likely to happen in December. Each day of the hearing will have 30 extra seats available, which are assigned by Pierce County Courts through a lottery system at noon daily.

Evidence presented may potentially include over a thousand pages of documents, testimony from a dozen medical experts about the autopsy, witness videos that contradicted early Sheriff's Office narratives around the circumstances, witnesses numbered in the hundreds, and conversations about training for police officers.

This case is the first wherein the state attorney general is prosecuting officers for the use of deadly force, and it is the first following the passing of Initiative 940 in 2018. Since the passing of I-940, police officers can be prosecuted for incidents of deadly force without needing to prove the presence of "malice," and only receive protections against criminal liability if they meet the "good faith standard."

The text of I-940 states, "The good faith standard is met only if the officer meets both the objective good faith test and subjective good faith test. The objective good faith test is met if a reasonable officer, in light of all of the facts and circumstances known to the officer at the time, would have believed that the use of deadly force was necessary to prevent death or serious physical harm to the officer or another individual. The subjective good faith test is met if the officer intended to use deadly force for a lawful purpose and sincerely and in good faith believed that the use of deadly force was warranted in the circumstance."

Port Angeles Pharmacy Becomes First in Washington to Offer Over-the-Counter Mifepristone

Jim's Pharmacy in Port Angeles has become the first site in Washington State to legally dispense the over-the-counter abortion pill, mifepristone. Mifepristone was previously only available through doctors or approved providers, but in January 2023, the Biden administration rolled out a certification process in which pharmacies could apply to dispense the drug. Additional applicants in Washington State are awaiting their certification, and a list of providers can be found on GenBioPro's website.

Though mifepristone is available via mail order, recent over-the-counter access has the possibility of being short-lived, depending on how the Supreme Court rules on an upcoming case. Following two contradictory lower court rulings centered around access to the FDA-approved drug, the Supreme Court made an emergency decision in April 2023 to pause a decision made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Texas, which issued a preliminary suspension of FDA approval for the drug. The temporary Supreme Court decision allowed access to mifepristone to remain intact for the time being. The Supreme Court is expected to take up the case.

Mifepristone is an oral medication that can be ordered through the mail and, according to the FDA, "blocks a hormone called progesterone that is needed for a pregnancy to continue," when used in tandem with misoprostol. It has been approved and made widely available on the market since September 2000, and has been deemed safer than Tylenol.

'Seattle Gay News' Expands Distribution Under New Ownership

Long-standing local LGBTQIA+ publication Seattle Gay News — recently rebranded to SGN — has found new ownership. This changeover follows a June 2023 announcement that SGN may cease publication unless it found a buyer. SGN is a print and online publication that launched in the early 1970s after the Stonewall movement for gay rights, and it has a legacy of covering local issues related to the LGBTQIA+ community, but it saw an uncertain future after its publisher George Bakan passed in 2020.

Angela Cragin, Bakan's child and SGN's current publisher, inherited the publication. After three years of setting the organization on a new path, Cragin has finally been able to find a new owner, Mike Schultz, who plans to broaden distribution on the paper to include other communities, such as Spokane, Bellingham, and Ocean Shores. Schultz, an accountant who has experience publishing for similar audiences through Stoneway News Northwest and Qview Northwest in Spokane, now splits his time between Seattle and Ocean Shores.

"My interest in SGN is largely to save it as a legacy newspaper," Schultz said in a statement to The Seattle Times. "It's been in print and an integral part of our community for the last 49 years. I really did not want to see it go away. … [In the 1980s,] it was going to the bars or you read Seattle Gay News to really know what was going on," he said. "That was the beginning of the AIDS crisis. That stuck with me, its value and relevance and how it literally saved some peoples' lives."

SGN will continue to be printed and has recently even increased its publishing run from 2,000 copies in circulation to 3,000, with plans for 4,000 in the near future.

📸 Featured Image: A June 3, 2020, vigil for Manuel Ellis. (Photo: Jeff Scott Shaw)

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