Mother of Manny Ellis says he was deeply religious and was trying to turn his life around

The mother of Manuel Ellis said the last time she talked to her son was the night he died. Marcia Carter is the second of Manny Ellis’s family members to testify against the three officers charged in his death.

They’re accused of tazing and beating him to death more than three years ago.

Manny Ellis’s mother was pretty stoic on the witness stand. She certainly kept her composure.

She was on the stand for just 20 minutes. The most compelling moment was when she described her last conversation with her son.

“Manny was the glue of our family, he kept us all together,” she said.

That is the picture Marcia Carter tried to paint of her middle child, Manuel Ellis. He was 33 years old when he died and would be 37 if he were alive today.

“Manny loved his family,” she said. “He was very, very close to all of us.”

She said the last time she talked to her son was the March 3 night in 2020 when he was killed. They talked on Facebook messenger for 12 to 15 minutes, so, she could see and hear him. Manny, she says, told her he wanted to change his life, to commit himself to his Christian faith.

During the trial, she was asked if there was anything unusual about his demeanor.

“I mean his happiness showed, that’s for sure,” said Carter. “That would have been the most, I guess, unusual part of it. He was very gregarious that night, more at peace.”

But that peace soon came to a violent end.

The unarmed black man was stopped later that night by two white Tacoma police officers, Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins, as he walked to the Tacoma halfway house where he was living.

The officers, along with Timothy Rankine, who is Asian American, are accused of tazing, tackling, and repeatedly punching Ellis until he died.

“I was told there was a homicide with my son,” said Carter.

She said she learned the next afternoon that her son was dead and wasn’t allowed to identify his body.

“Never identified him, never saw him, we asked,” said Carter, taking a deep breath. “It was the worst day of my life.”

During cross-examination, she said she knew her son had a drug problem. But she said he never called her when he was using.

The defense is arguing that Ellis was addicted to methamphetamine and had a weak heart and that those factors likely contributed to his death.

©2023 Cox Media Group