Tacoma’s Manuel Ellis, like so many before him, didn’t have to die
Manuel Ellis died of respiratory arrest due to hypoxia.
That means the 33-year-old black man was deprived of oxygen while being restrained in the street by Tacoma police officers, in handcuffs.
In a nation already reeling from the murder of George Floyd and too many other black Americans, Ellis’ March 3 death amounts to a homicide, the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s office concluded this week.
It also amounts to yet another unnecessary killing of a black man at the hands of police, a torn community is left to conclude.
At one point, on a 12-minute police radio recording, Ellis can be heard saying, “Can’t breathe.”
Can’t breathe.
Right here in Tacoma.
“This man was doing no wrong. And the police killed him,” Ellis’ younger sister, Monet Carter-Mixon told The News Tribune on Wednesday, not long after news of the medical examiner’s homicide findings were published by the paper.
“And so everyone needs to be as uneasy as I have been and my family has been, and as uneasy as my brother was when he took his last breath,’” Carter-Mixon said.
“They need to know that there are things like this happening in our community.”
If the revelation comes as a shock to some, it’s safe to say it doesn’t for Tacoma’s black community.
Black people across the nation have known this — and lived with this reality — since the founding of this country.
“It doesn’t surprise me, the findings,” Carter-Mixon said, channeling the cold reality and exhaustion black Americans are forced to live with.
So what happens from here?
Tragically and tellingly, there’s a playbook.
We know what comes next because we’ve watched it play out so many times.
First, Ellis’ story and the events that led up to his death will be analyzed and dissected. While racist murderers like Dylann Roof or domestic terrorists like James Eagan Holmes are taken into police custody largely without incident, men like Ellis are put under microscope, with any flaw or blemish serving as evidence that he deserved to die — particularly for those who wanted to believe that from the start.
These convenient stories and narratives will soothe white dinner tables across America, focusing on Ellis’ battle with addiction and his struggle with mental illness. They’ll draw on the police findings — or the “official” word — which note Ellis’ alleged confrontational behavior, the drugs in his system, the “excited delirium” and the contributing factors beyond police use of force.
To many, Carter-Mixon’s dead brother will quickly be reduced to an addict and a criminal, and the tale will transform into one too often told in this country:
Of a black man — less than human — who was asking for it and got what he had coming.
Simultaneously, local prosecutors will decide whether a crime actually occurred.
“I feel like in America we try to assassinate the black man’s character,” Carter-Mixon said, pointing a rightful finger at the media and white society.
“People in America, they care more about how a dog is treated than a black man,” she continued. “I can guarantee you right now that if what happened to my brother happened to an animal, there would be an uproar.”
There should be an uproar for Manuel Ellis.
He was not an animal.
There should also be the truth of who he really was.
That’s the least we can do.
When asked about her brother, Carter-Mixon — even through her pain — can’t help but laugh a little.
She recalls the older brother who looked out for her growing up in Lakewood and Tacoma, a protector who now leaves two children of his own.
A middle child, born at St. Joseph Medical Center, Ellis had charisma and a sense of humor and became his mother’s favorite, Monet-Carter recalled.
She remembers her brother’s love of music and his deep religious faith. A single mother, she tells stories of Ellis caring for her five children, of changing her oil, of simply always being there for her.
She also recalls her brother’s struggles and the way a little sister grew to help him as much as he helped her.
At two, Ellis’ biological father died of stomach cancer, Carter-Mixon explained. The childhood was rough, and her brother “wasn’t dealt the best hand,” she said.
His schizophrenia was not diagnosed for many years. Because of circumstances and stigmas, he never got the help he truly needed.
More recently, Carter-Mixon said, her brother revealed physical and sexual abuse he endured for years as a boy.
It deeply affected him, Carter-Mixon said.
“He kept (the abuse) a secret until he was in his mid-20s. He was trying to self medicate,” Carter-Mixon said. “When he opened up about it, he just said, ‘I’m tired of this. I’m tired of feeling like this. I’m tired of living my life like this. I need some help, and I didn’t get the help I needed when I was younger.’”
Her brother died just as he was finally trying to turn a corner, Carter-Mixon said.
She wants people to remember Ellis as a “funny, talented, charismatic man — and a loving man.”
Since March, Carter-Mixon’s family has been grasping for answers.
All the while, deep down, the family has always known what those answers would reveal, Carter-Mixon said.
On the night of his death, Ellis played drums at a church revival.
Then he was killed.
He didn’t have to die.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 2:33 PM.
