Was TPD officer justified in driving through street-racing crowd? Records show chaotic scene
A Tacoma police officer rolled into a chaotic scene with street racers doing doughnuts in a downtown intersection as more than 100 people watched and filmed the action. It wasn’t long before his patrol car was surrounded.
Officer Khanh Phan said he was paralyzed with fear as people banged on the hood of his car, kicked the sides and screamed at him. He heard a bottle shatter against his window and was convinced it was a Molotov cocktail.
“At that moment I was certain that I was seconds away from dying at the hands of the angry crowd if I remained there any longer,” Phan wrote in a three-page statement submitted to investigators looking into why he plowed through a swarm of pedestrians Jan. 23, running over one. “The mob clearly wanted to get at me and beat me, or set my car on fire with me inside.”
Two other Tacoma officers who witnessed the incident said they feared for Phan’s safety and their own. They described an unruly mob shouting profanities, unwilling to move and undeterred by police, becoming more violent as the minutes ticked by. Some witnesses agreed and thought the crowd looked threatening; others said Phan could have backed away from the pedestrians and avoided hitting anybody.
Two patrol cars were damaged by the crowd, including a broken window, bent metal security bars and numerous dents to both vehicles, according to the 900-page investigation recently released to The News Tribune.
The Pierce County Force Investigation Team spent six months gathering information on the incident. They spoke with about 80 witnesses, victims and officers; analyzed 93 video clips and listened to 911 calls and radio dispatch. They pored over medical records, police reports, social media posts and warrants.
The team, comprised of 30 detectives from multiple agencies with a Puyallup investigator taking the lead, presented all of its findings to prosecutors last week.
Prosecutors will review the case and decide whether Phan acted within reason, a process that typically takes six months.
Phan, 58, who has been with the department for 30 years, remains on administrative leave.
Street-racing takeover
Street-racing events ramped up during the pandemic, exacerbating a problem regional law enforcement was already struggling to handle.
Last year, there were 20 street racing complaints in Tacoma. In January 2021, there were 65.
Participants spread word of the “takeovers” on social media, drawing dozens or sometimes hundreds to parking lots or intersections where they blocked off streets to stage races or do doughnuts.
The events have led to two women being killed at an Auburn meetup and spectators being injured in Seattle.
On the night Phan drove through a crowd, police received calls from people complaining about a large group taking over the intersection at East 11th Street and Portland Avenue.
Officers didn’t respond for an hour and five minutes, and when they arrived, there were no signs of street racing.
At the same time, people began calling 911 to report another “takeover” at South 9th Street and Pacific Avenue with more than 100 people in attendance.
Phan, who had just finished a call in the area, volunteered to respond and was first on scene.
He expected the group to disperse as he approached with his lights and siren on because that’s what street-racing crowds did in the past, according to his statement.
“However, this racing crowd responded to my presence much differently than any of my past experiences,” Phan said.
He was traveling north on Pacific Avenue but couldn’t get past 11th Street, which was blocked by cars and pedestrians. Looking for an alternative route, Phan headed to South 9th and A streets.
There he said he found a “chaotic scene” with vehicles driving in different directions, smoke billowing into the air from burning tire rubber, cars spinning in circles as the crowd cheered and the sound of tires squealing.
When Phan’s patrol SUV was 30 to 60 feet from the intersection, “a large group of the racing crowd suddenly turned towards my direction, and quickly advanced towards me and surrounded my police vehicle, blocking me from moving any further,” he wrote in his statement.
He described hostile spectators yelling and cursing with fists clenched as some pounded on the hood of his car, hit his windows and kicked the sides of the patrol SUV. He said the car was being rocked and he couldn’t see out of his windows.
“Sheer terror and fright paralyzed me,” Phan said.
The officer said his thoughts went to recent violence against police: a Capitol officer killed by a mob, a man who threw Molotov cocktails at Seattle patrol cars and set two on fire, racing crowds that busted out windows at the Port of Tacoma and Tacoma Mall.
Phan decided he had to drive out of the area immediately.
“The crowd had surrounded my car and turned into a vicious violent mob so quickly that I had no time to consider alternatives to saving my life or using my radio,” according to his statement.
He tried to reverse but couldn’t see out of his rear camera, which he said was obscured by darkness and headlights. Investigators later confirmed that it was difficult to see out of the rear camera with headlights pointing in that direction. He felt pounding on the back of the patrol SUV so he inched forward.
“My only option was to go forward slowly through the mob with somewhat clearer vision,” Phan said.
When a man allegedly climbed on the hood of the car, Phan saw an opening in the crowd and surged ahead. He struck six people, running over one, and continued driving uphill on South 9th Street.
He said he tried to turn around and return to the scene to see if anyone was injured, but people chased him so he fled and called for backup.
‘Drag him out’
Two Tacoma officers were on scene when Phan’s patrol car was surrounded and he drove through the crowd.
Christopher Bain arrived shortly after Phan and said he saw people surround the patrol car, shaking it as they punched windows and kicked the sides of the vehicle. Bain decided not to drive closer in case Phan could back away from the crowd and started devising a plan to run up to Phan, grab him and bring him to safety.
Rader Cockle was next on scene and said several people immediately sprinted toward him, hitting the driver’s window and pulling at the door handle.
“At this point I could make out what the crowd was screaming and it put me in even greater fear than I was already. I could clearly hear people screaming ‘kill that cop’ and things like ‘pull him out’ or ‘drag him out,’ Cockle wrote in a police report. “At the same time I began to hear my windows cracking and objects striking my vehicle. Being surrounded by what sounded and felt a murderous mob I was in fear for my life and I was still uncertain if PPS Phan was being assaulted.”
He could see a man lying on the ground and feared it was Phan. The man lying on the ground was actually Anthony Huff-McKay, who was run over by Phan’s patrol SUV.
“I felt at any moment that my driver side window or door latch would fail and I would be drug out of the vehicle and beat to death as it was live-streamed on social media,” Cockle said.
Somebody came over the police radio and said a spectator had thrown a Moltoc cocktail, which investigators later determined to be untrue.
Cockle said he heard glass shatter behind him and was afraid, so he used his patrol car’s PA system to tell the crowd that if they broke into his door or front windows, he would shoot.
Eventually the car in front of him moved, and Cockle was able to maneuver out of the situation and check on the man Phan had run over.
Cockle’s patrol car sustained the most damage — a smashed rear window, damaged metal bars and dents from where people kicked the vehicle. Phan’s patrol SUV had side body panel damage and the driver’s door had to be forced open and closed, investigators said.
Was officer in danger?
Some witnesses and people in the crowd do not believe Phan was in danger and said he could have backed up and avoided hitting the pedestrians.
Sherrie Minter lived nearby and saw what happened from the window of her home.
“It didn’t seem to me like something that needed, you know, the use of force that he used. It didn’t seem to me, like, at no point was I going like, ‘Oh my God, that officer.’ You know, it wasn’t to that yet,” she told investigators. “It just happened so quick, it might have gone there, I don’t know, those people were crazy. So had it lasted an longer maybe, but I, it didn’t look hostile from this angle.”
Several people in the crowd said there was so much commotion that they couldn’t tell what happened.
Tavon Williams, 43, was filming the “takeover” with his cell phone.
“And next thing you know, I’m picking myself up. I’m not knowing what’s going on, you know?” according to a transcript of his interview with PCFIT. “I didn’t know what the force was.”
Huff-McKay, 21, is the man run over by Phan’s patrol car. He suffered a partially collapsed lung, abrasion and leg pain, records say.
He estimated 20 people were surrounding Phan’s car when the officer started to back up but then lurched forward.
“Because he was able to back up and he kinda kept going for a minute, and then it was just, he just literally randomly stopped, and then just floored it,” Huff-McKay said.
Tavian Jordan-Layacan, 22, was another man injured by the patrol car.
“I don’t believe that cop was in that much danger to go straight into the crowd like that they way he did, like, people were just nothing like that,” he told PCFIT.
Timeline
5:19 p.m.: Callers to 911 reported street racers doing doughnuts and blocking the intersection at East 11th Street and Portland Avenue.
6:24 p.m.: Officer responded to that location and found no street racing. Callers to 911 reported the same activity at South 9th Street and Pacific Avenue.
6:25 p.m.: Phan arrived on scene.
6:26 p.m.: Phan requested additional units and said the intersection was blocked. Bain arrived on scene.
6:28 p.m.: Bain radioed that people were kicking Phan’s patrol car. Dispatchers marked it a priority call and all available officers in Pierce County started to respond. Phan drove through the crowd.
6:29 p.m.: Phan again requested more units.
6:30 p.m.: Cockle called for a priority response. Phan asked all units from Pierce County to respond. An unidentified officer asked for assistance from anybody with “a less lethal and shotgun too.”
6:33 p.m.: Tacoma firefighters arrived on scene to help a pedestrian who was run over.
6:36 p.m.: Dispatchers tell all law enforcement officers not from Tacoma to stop their response.
