Officer acquitted in Manny Ellis trial hired by Thurston County Sheriff’s Office
A former Tacoma officer acquitted in the Manny Ellis murder trial has been hired by the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office.
Christopher Burbank will serve as a Lateral Patrol Deputy, according to a Facebook post from the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office Monday.
Burbank was one of three officers acquitted in December for the 2020 death of Ellis while he was in custody.
“Deputy Burbank joins us with 14 years of patrol experience and will provide immediate relief in our patrol division,” the Facebook post read.
The lateral hire ended a long drought for the department, it noted, adding that the department has not had a lateral patrol deputy applicant pass all phases of the hiring process since 2021.
Seven more lateral applicants are in the hiring process and the Sheriff’s Office is “expecting to be fully staffed with zero vacancies in patrol with a wait list to join our team.” Nineteen vacancies remain for the corrections bureau, and 27 candidates are currently in the background process, they said.
“TCSO has hired more new employees through April of 2024 than we hired for the entire year of 2023, a testament of the improvement made in our background unit which now has 14 investigators,” the post noted.
The three Tacoma officers involved in the Ellis case — Burbank, Matthew Collins and Timothy Rankine — were collectively paid more than $1 million during the duration of the murder trial.
The Attorney General’s Office charged Burbank and Collins with second-degree murder, and Rankine with first-degree manslaughter in 2021.
According to reports, Ellis was beaten, tasered, hogtied and had a spit hood put over his head during the encounter with officers. He was restrained until medical personnel from the Tacoma Fire Department arrived at the scene. The former Pierce County medical examiner concluded that Ellis died from oxygen deprivation caused by physical restraint.
During the trial, medical experts testified in agreement that Ellis died due to the way he was restrained by officers. A use-of-force expert also testified that the officers used excessive force.
McClatchy contacted the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office for further comment, but has not yet received a response.
In a Reddit post Tuesday, users heavily criticized Sanders and the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office for Burbank’s hiring.
Sanders, who frequently posts on the social media platform, responded and said that Burbank spent two months with background investigators “who investigated every aspect of his personal and professional life.”
“At the end of this investigation, they came to the same conclusion as the jury,” Sanders said in the post. “Burbank was acquitted entirely, and despite Tacoma trying their hardest to find any policy violation (this is referenced in their media statement where they express remorse that they couldn’t find anything) to substantiate they found no violation of any policy either.”
The Sheriff added that Burbank took and passed a polygraph exam about the incident, and noted that people on “both sides of this issue” feel strongly about it.
“I suppose the larger scope of my concern is how many different layers have to weigh in that someone is innocent before they are deemed as such?” Sanders continued. “Burbank has been cleared at so many different levels, including the one that matters most: a trial before his peers.”
Others criticized the hiring decision as well.
Shelly Washington, an impacted family member with the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability, told McClatchy in a phone interview that Burbank’s acquittal is “irrelevant.”
Her nephew Kevin Peterson Jr. was shot and killed in 2020 after Clark County Sheriff’s Office deputies fired at him 34 times.
“Sanders needs to build trust with the community and by hiring [Burbank] it hurts the situation, not helps it,” Washington said.
She called the move a “slap in the face” to families like hers and Ellis’.
“With his record how are we supposed to trust that we’re safe?” Washington added.
