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The Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office will not bring charges against police officers who helped restrain a man showing “signs of intoxication and distress” near the Baltimore Convention Center and put him on a stretcher before his death last summer.
Prosecutors with the Public Trust and Police Integrity Unit wrote in a 13-page report that there was no evidence of causation between the actions of law enforcement and paramedics and the death of Trea Ellinger, 29, of Glen Burnie, on July 25, 2023.
Baltimore Police Officers Sharrod Mobley and Ryan Barnes-Klipa responded to a call before 4:30 p.m. on South Howard Street and found Ellinger lying in the middle of the road with Maryland Transit Administration Police officers and Baltimore City Fire Department paramedics surrounding him, according to the report.
Ellinger, the report states, was “exhibiting signs of intoxication and distress” and “speaking incomprehensibly.”
Police handcuffed Ellinger and moved him onto his side. Next, they held his shoulders, arms and legs so paramedics could give him a sedative. Law enforcement then helped put him on a stretcher, according to the report.
Paramedics loaded Ellinger into an ambulance, the report states, while police continued attempting to calm him down. First responders tried taking his vital signs but could not “due to him moving around, incomprehensibly yelling, and trying to break free.”
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Prosecutors reported that Ellinger “continued to struggle against the restraints, but less forcefully and less frequently.”
Later, paramedics noticed Ellinger’s lips were blue and that he was in cardiac arrest, the report reads.
Ellinger was pronounced dead at 7:43 p.m. at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
His cause of death was mixed drug intoxication. The manner of death was undetermined, according to the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
The Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s Independent Investigations Division turned over its findings to the state’s attorney on Oct. 2, 2023.
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Dylan Segelbaum is the courts reporter at The Baltimore Banner.
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