The Tacoma City Council authorized the city to pay $600,000 to one of the former police officers acquitted of killing Manuel Ellis.

Timothy Rankine and his wife, Katherine Chinn, filed a claim against the city alleging that elected officials and city employees made “politically motivated, false accusations” to the public alleging racially biased policing and criminal misconduct. Chinn argued the city’s actions damaged their marriage and led to “severe emotional distress.”

Ellis, 33, died March 3, 2020, after repeatedly telling Tacoma police officers that he couldn’t breathe as they pinned him to the ground, took turns kneeling on him as he lay prone, struck him in the head, hobbled his legs with a cord and placed a mesh spit hood over his face. The officers — Rankine, Christopher Burbank

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