TACOMA, Wash. — A second medical expert appeared on the witness stand Wednesday in the trial for the death of Manuel Ellis saying Tacoma police restricted Ellis’ breathing to the point where his heart failed.
Dr. Daniel Wohlgelernter has been a practicing cardiologist since 1983. His conclusions echoed that of a previous medical expert who appeared in front of the jury, saying oxygen deprivation is ultimately what led to Ellis’ death.
Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man, died in Tacoma police custody after a confrontation with officers Matthew Collins, Christopher Burbank and Timothy Rankine on March 3, 2020.
Collins and Burbank face second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter charges in Ellis' death. Rankine faces a first-degree manslaughter charge.
'Respiratory compromise'
Wohlgelernter has his own practice in Santa Monica, California, and is also a section chief of cardiology at Providence St. Johns.
He was asked to review Ellis’ medical history, reports from paramedics at the scene, interviews from the Tacoma police officers involved in the incident, eyewitness statements and the autopsy from the Pierce County Medical Examiner to make his own determination about how Ellis died. Wohlgelernter concluded that Ellis died from restraint asphyxia.
In Wohlgelernter’s assessment, Ellis’ death was the result of being in a prone position, restrained with handcuffs, hobbled and with added weight applied to his chest and torso from a police officer or police officers on his back. He said this restrained Ellis’ breathing to the point where he could not gather enough oxygen to sustain his heart.
“That respiratory compromise led to hypoxia and ultimate cardiac arrest,” Wohlgelernter said.
Wohlgelernter explained to the jury that the heart and lungs work closely together to deliver oxygen to the body and dispose of waste, like carbon dioxide. When the body is deprived of oxygen from the lungs, the heart and other parts of the body, begin to shut down.
The night that Ellis died, he was displaying what was diagnosed as pulseless electrical activity, or PEA. As the name suggests, Ellis’ heart was still registering electrical activity, but he no longer had a pulse – something Wohlgelernter said is characteristic of oxygen deprivation.
“The muscle of the heart is more sensitive to that oxygen deprivation than the electrical activity, so the muscle has now quit on us, but the electrical activity is still ongoing in a bit of an irregular way,” Wohlgelernter said.
Meth in Ellis' system
Wohlgelernter showed the jury on an EKG taken of Ellis’ heart that night how his pulse began to slow, then fade altogether when he could not regain his breath.
While Ellis did have a toxic level of meth in his system, Wohlgelernter said meth "created a heightened oxygen requirement, which made Mr. Ellis more vulnerable to the impact of having decreased oxygen availability as a result of the restraint asphyxia."
Over his career, Wohlgelernter said he has also become familiar with the way substance abuse, including methamphetamine, can impact someone’s heart. As a rotating emergency room cardiologist from 2005 to 2019, he estimated that he saw someone with methamphetamine-related heart problems about once a month on average.
The amount of meth in Ellis’ system the night he died is a major point of disagreement between the prosecution and the defense, with the defense arguing that the meth is solely responsible for Ellis’ death.
Methamphetamine is a stimulant and Wohlgelernter said none of Ellis' heart rhythms were consistent with rapid heartbeats until after he was given epinephrine from medics.
"There's dying with methamphetamine and dying because of meth," he said. "In this case, it's my opinion Mr. Ellis died with methamphetamine, but not because of methamphetamine."
On Wednesday afternoon, Wohlgelernter said even though the paramedics gave Ellis oxygen and other medical interventions, it wasn't going to restore his condition. The defense also argued that Ellis' underlying medical conditions and meth levels were to blame for his death and that the officers applying pressure or being on top of Ellis' back had no impact on his condition.
"He was trying to get people who are sitting on his back off of his back. That's struggling to live, that's not fighting," Wohlgelernter said on the witness stand.
“Physiologically, he’s fallen off the edge of the cliff, you can’t just bring him back that easily,” Wohlgelernter said of Ellis' state when medics were treating him. “So, it’s not surprising to me that he didn’t recover despite the fact that the fire department paramedics were providing him with oxygen.”
He also said Ellis' heart was enlarged by about 80 grams, but that Ellis' case of cardiomyopathy was mild and it was not the sole cause of his death.
A portion of Wohlgelernter's testimony was dedicated to rejecting the idea that Ellis died from "excited delirium," as previous witness paramedic Lt. Nicholas Wilson maintained the day before. Wohlgelernter said this is a diagnosis based on behavior and is not an accepted cause of death by cardiologists or by many major health organizations.
"To simply attribute cause of death to excited delirium ... That's just not accepted, that's pseudo-science," he said.
Wohlgelernter also rejected several other ideas about Ellis' cause of death, saying that, in his opinion, Ellis did not die solely from an enlarged heart or another heart disease, from a meth overdose or from only cardiac arrest.
“Everything fits for this being restraint asphyxia, causing hypoxia, causing cardiac arrest,” he said.
Wohlgelernter signed a contract with the state Attorney General's office at a pay rate of $550 per hour with a maximum total payment of $50,000, he said on Wednesday.
Officer Timothy Rankine's lawyer, Mark Conrad, attempted to draw similarities between the verbiage and findings of Wohlgelernter's report on Ellis' case and a report he did for a 2019 case involving a man who died while being restrained by officers of the Pittsburg Police Department.
Wohlgelernter's testimony resumes on Thursday morning.
White powdery substance on window of Tacoma police cruiser
On Wednesday morning, Pierce County Sheriff’s Department Forensic Investigator Steven Mell was asked at length about a white powdery substance he photographed on the window of the Tacoma Police Department cruiser that officers Burbank and Collins were driving on the night of the incident.
In opening statements, the defense alleged that when the officers arrived at the intersection, Ellis was out in the street attempting to enter a car that was driving through. The officers claimed Ellis then came up to the police cruiser and hit the passenger-side window, leaving behind residue from powdered donuts he had just purchased at 7-Eleven.
Defense attorneys Brett Purtzer and Jared Ausserer displayed several pictures Mell took of the window, where the white substance was streaked down the glass and on the black frame of the cruiser door. The defense also showed a picture of the donut box near the cruiser.
It was noted that Mell did not take a sample of the white substance at the scene, so there is no official analysis as to what it was. Mell said he would only take a sample if it appeared to be a “questionable substance,” which the defense emphasized.
“You had no question that this (the white powder) was consistent with powdered sugar in this case, right?” Ausserer asked.
“Correct,” Mell said.
Background on the case
On March 3, 2020, Ellis was walking home when he stopped to speak with Tacoma Police Officers Burbank and Collins, who were in their patrol car, according to probable cause documents.
Witnesses said Ellis turned to walk away, but the officers got out of their car and knocked Ellis to his knees. All witnesses told investigators they did not see Ellis strike the officers.
Other responding officers told investigators that Burbank and Collins reported Ellis was “goin’ after a car” in the intersection and punched the patrol car's windows.
Witness video shows officers repeatedly hitting Ellis. Collins put Ellis into a neck restraint, and Burbank tasered Ellis’ chest, according to prosecutors.
Home security camera footage captured Ellis saying, “Can’t breathe, sir. Can’t breathe."
Rankine, who was the first backup officer to arrive, applied pressure to Ellis' back and held him in place while Ellis was "hogtied" with a hobble, according to documents.
When the fire department arrived, Ellis was “unconscious and unresponsive,” according to documents.
The Pierce County Medical Examiner ruled Ellis' death a homicide. According to the autopsy report, Ellis also had a fatal amount of methamphetamine in his system.
KING 5 will stream gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial from opening to closing statements. Follow live coverage and watch videos on demand on king5.com, KING 5+ and the KING 5 YouTube channel.