Manuel Ellis died handcuffed in the street. How Tacoma responds will define us
It took months for the family of Manny Ellis to start getting the answers they deserved from the beginning.
It took weeks for the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office findings — ruling Ellis’ March 3 death in Tacoma police custody a homicide — to make their way to City Hall and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department investigating it.
And it took less than 48 hours for Tacoma and its mayor to be shaken to the core, bringing what had been a national story about police brutality and the unacceptable deaths of black Americans to our doorstep.
What we do now — and how we respond — is up to us.
For better, or worse.
“The officers who committed this crime should be fired and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” a visibly shaken Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards said in a stunning statement late Thursday night, Tacoma TV cameras capturing it all.
“I demand that the sheriff provide details of the actions of each officer on the scene. And I am then directing the city manager to fire each officer involved,” the mayor continued, providing the latest dramatic, emotionally charged turn in a week already full of them.
What had transpired in the hours and days leading up to the moment, for a city and its people, was nothing short of traumatic and harrowing.
Hopefully, it will also be transformative.
If history is made of a chronicled series of events that collectively tell the tale of our humanity, there’s little question Tacoma’s story will now always include a chapter on Manny Ellis and how we answered the call.
As is often the case, the first domino fell with, what at the time, surely felt like an unremarkable nudge. It was a phone call, placed by The News Tribune’s Stacia Glenn to the Medical Examiner’s Office, that would reveal the homicide findings that had been there — all along — since May 11.
Glenn placed the call as part of what she described as “routine reporting” — checking up on the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department’s investigation into Ellis’ death after a weekend of community protest.
She was doing her job, looking for answers.
What she found changed everything, all at once.
No one knew yet. Not the family. Not a city. Not its mayor.
No one.
A day later, and moments after the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s homicide findings were first published by The News Tribune, Monet Carter-Mixon, Ellis’ sister, spoke to me on the phone.
She recalled first learning the news that, by now, was already on its way to spanning the globe.
“All of the information that we have received have been from journalists that have called or asked, or other people within our community who are using their privilege to try to get answers,” Carter-Mixon said, her justifiable anger and frustration palpable.
“We haven’t received anything from the police yet,” she continued. “There hasn’t been any transparency at all. These findings, they were all from the news.”
“The police killed him and tried to cover it up,” Carter-Mixon later added, describing her brother as “a funny, talented, charismatic … and loving man.”
On Thursday — with eyes and ears from across the country now set on the City of Destiny — Ellis’ family and their attorney stood just outside Tacoma’s County City Building and demanded action.
Ellis’ mother, Marcia Carter, spoke with maternal pain and resolution.
She recalled the last words her son had shared with her, by phone, not long before he died handcuffed in the street.
Her son called her “madre,” Carter remembered, and the last thing he said was he loved her.
“I can’t hear that ever again,” Carter said at the press conference, through tears. “I won’t be able to hear that. My heart hurts.”
After his death, Carter said she had cried for two months and 10 days straight.
Less than 12 hours later, Woodards made a decision that will surely come to define her career in politics and her tenure as mayor.
Video of Ellis’ fatal encounter with Tacoma police had surfaced and watching it Thursday night left Woodards enraged and angered, she said.
Already, the mayor had issued a statement, calling for a “full, complete and independent investigation into the death of Manuel Ellis.”
Now, Woodards was going much further.
“Today, it stops in Tacoma,” Woodards said with a steadfast conviction of a black woman raised in this town.
“In this moment, at this time, based on the information that I know today, the officers’ actions we saw on this video tonight only confirm that Manuel Ellis’ death was a homicide,” the mayor added.
What we do now — and how we respond — is up to us.
For better or worse.
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 3:39 PM.
