World
Washington state police accountability law in the spotlight after officers cleared in Ellis' death
A Washington state law aimed at improving police accountability is in the spotlight after Tacoma three officers were acquitted in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was shocked, beaten and restrained face-down on a sidewalk as he pleaded for breath.
The measure approved by voters in 2018 was designed to make it easier to prosecute police accused of wrongfully using deadly force. Initiative 940, referred to as I-940, removed a requirement that prosecutors prove an officer acted with actual malice in order to bring a case — a requirement no other state had — and established that an independent investigation should be conducted after use of force results in death or great bodily harm, among other things.
The nearly three-month trial of the three police officers — Matthew Collins, 40; Christopher Burbank, 38; and Timothy Rankine, 34 — was the first to be held under the 5-year-old law. The trial over Ellis’ death in Tacoma, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Seattle, ended Thursday with their acquittal on various murder and manslaughter charges.
The acquittal came a day before a jury in Colorado convicted two paramedics in the death of Elijah McClain, another Black man whose case drew national scrutiny.
Matthew Ericksen, a lawyer for the Ellis family, said Washington’s 2018 police accountability law failed in certain regards in a trial that amounted to a test case for the measure, resulting in a verdict that devastated the family.
“One of the big reforms that I-940 was meant to bring was completely independent investigations of in-custody deaths like Mr. Ellis,” Ericksen said. “And that just didn’t happen. The law was violated, and in many ways, there really haven’t been any consequences for that.”
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office botched the initial probe into the death by failing to disclose for three months that one of its deputies had been involved in restraining Ellis, despite the state law requiring independent investigations. The Washington State Patrol took over, and the Attorney General’s Office conducted its review based on evidence gathered by the patrol as well as its own additional investigation before charging the officers.
How effective I-940 can be will come down to how it is enforced, according to Ericksen. While the Ellis case highlighted gaps in the measure, he said it remained one of the “necessary building blocks to hopefully get to some police accountability.”
“We’re better off having I-940 than not,” he said. “I sincerely hope this one verdict does not deter future investigations and prosecutions, and I know the Ellis family feels the same way.”
Other police reform advocates also were disappointed by the verdict but said the fact the case went to trial at all — due to the law dropping the requirement that prosecutors prove officers acted with malice — already marked a significant change. Another Washington state officer, Jeff Nelson in Auburn, south of Seattle, is awaiting trial on a murder charge brought after I-940.
“We made it possible for them to know that you can be charged if you do something wrong,” said Tonya Isabell, cousin of Charleena Lyles, a pregnant mother who was fatally shot by Seattle police in 2017. “We’re all hurting, we’re devastated and we’re mad. But again, we have to look at the overall outcome of this.”
Lawyers for the three Tacoma officers said their clients acted in good faith and were relieved by the verdict. The Pierce County medical examiner ruled Ellis’ death was a homicide caused by oxygen deprivation, but the defense argued at trial that methamphetamine in his system and a heart irregularity were to blame.
Bremner, who represented Rankine, said dropping the malice requirement for prosecution was generally viewed as unwelcome by law enforcement officers because of the potential for exposure to criminal liability.
“We’ve seen a lot of attrition and folks not wanting to become involved in law enforcement careers,” she said. “The vast majority of the officers that we have everywhere do excellent work and want to do their jobs in a way that they can help people and protect the community.”
State Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, a Tacoma Democrat who previously worked in the Attorney General’s Office on the implementation of I-940, said the law on its own does not guarantee accountability but rather “the opportunity to make the case for accountability” in court.
The measure has since been bolstered, she said, by 2021 laws creating an independent state office to review cases involving police use of deadly force and banning chokeholds and neck restraints.
“We do have a framework moving forward that is much more robust,” she said. “My hope as a bigger picture is that we may be able to realize that changes in the culture of policing and the laws around policing are meant to engender public trust. And I hope that we’ll be able to work together.”
World
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 815
Here is the situation on Sunday, May 19, 2024.
Fighting
- Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region halted operations following a Ukrainian drone attack overnight, Interfax news agency reported. The refinery is a private plant with a capacity of 4 million metric tonnes of oil per year, about one million barrels per day.
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Ukraine’s air force claimed it destroyed all 37 Shahed attack drones launched by Russia overnight. The regions targeted by the drones include Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy and Kherson.
- The governor of Kharkiv said nearly 10,000 people had been forced to leave their homes since Russian forces launched a surprise ground attack on May 10. Russia claimed its military took control of another village, Staritsya, in the Kharkiv region near the Russian border.
- Ukrainian prosecutors said Russian shelling killed a 60-year-old woman and injured three other civilians in the northeast city of Vovchansk, 5km (3 miles) from the Russian border. A 59-year-old man was also injured in the village of Ukrainske.
- Russia said its forces shot down nine US ATACMS missiles over Crimea and at least 60 drones over Russian sovereign territory. Its forces also shot down a Tochka-U missile fired by Ukraine in Russia’s Belgorod region.
- Belgorod regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a Ukrainian drone attack injured a woman and a man in the village of Petrovka. The two were treated for shrapnel injuries.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged issues with staffing and “morale” within the country’s troops as he signed a mobilisation law that came into force on Saturday. Kyiv has lowered the age at which men can be drafted from 27 to 25 and tightened punishments for those who avoid the call-up.
- Ukrainian prosecutors said they were investigating as a potential war crime a Russian air attack on a residential area of the regional capital, Kharkiv, in which six civilians were wounded, including a 13-year-old girl, 16-year-old male and an eight-year-old.
- Ukrainian officials accuse Russian soldiers in Vovchansk of using dozens of captured civilians as “human shields” to defend their command headquarters.
- Moscow denied deliberately targeting civilians even as thousands have been killed and injured since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
- Poland announced it would spend $2.5bn to fortify its eastern border, which includes Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
World
Ukraine investigates civilian injuries, battles rage in Kharkiv region
World
Philippine mayor accused of acting as Chinese asset amid investigation, tensions
A Philippine mayor faces accusations of acting as a Chinese asset amid a growing territorial dispute between the two countries.
“No one knows her. We wonder where she came from. That’s why we are investigating this, together with the Bureau of Immigration, because of the questions about her citizenship,” Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos told reporters this week.
Alice Guo, the 35-year-old mayor of Bamban, has found herself in the middle of a potential scandal over her origins and allegiances. She claimed to have grown up on a pig farm and had raised no concerns prior to a strange discovery made in her town this month, the BBC reported.
Law enforcement discovered that an online casino by the name of Philippine Offshore Gambling Operator (Pogo) in Bamban actually served as a front for a “scam center,” which had close to 700 workers — including over 200 Chinese nationals — who were posing as “online lovers.”
CHINA’S MILITARY MONITORS ROUTE TAKEN BY FILIPINO ACTIVISTS SAILING TOWARD DISPUTED SHOAL
The raid on the site in March rescued all of those workers, who claimed they were forced to work for the owners. The center tried to con victims with a “pig butchering” scam, in which a scammer adopted a fake identity to gain trust and then offered a romantic relationship to manipulate and steal from the victim.
Guo found herself entangled in the incident when it came to light that she owned half the land where Pogo was located.
LAWMAKERS BRAWL AS TAIWAN’S PARLIAMENT DESCENDS INTO CHAOS
The nation’s Senate brought her into a hearing to testify, and she claimed she had sold the land before she ran for mayor two years earlier, along with assets that included a helicopter and a Ford Expedition, both registered under her name but allegedly sold off before her campaign, the South China Morning Press reported.
Other irregularities raised concerns about her status. She only registered with the Commission on Elections to vote in Bamban one year before she ran and won as mayor.
She also admitted she only registered her birth certificate with local authorities at the age of 17 and gave few details about her background other than she was born in a house and home-schooled in a family compound where they raised pigs.
Senators accused Guo of providing “opaque” answers to their questions about her background, leading one senator to ask if Guo was a Chinese asset. She fired back that she was “not a coddler, not a protector of Pogos.”
AFTER DOZENS DIE IN FLOODS, INDONESIA SEEDS CLOUDS TO BLOCK RAINFALL
China and the Philippines have found themselves in renewed territorial disputes as Beijing tries to enforce control over waters around the Philippines, leading to clashes between Chinese Coast Guards and Filipino fishermen.
Last year saw a series of near clashes between the two coast guards near the Second Thomas Shoal. The Philippine authorities protested China’s use of a water cannon and military-grade lasers.
China established a claim to the Scarborough Shoal in 2012, after which the Philippines formally launched a protest that went before a United Nations-backed tribunal. A 2016 ruling went against China, rejecting Beijing’s claims on “historical grounds,” but Beijing rejected the arbitration and its outcome.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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