They mourned Manuel Ellis at Cheney Stadium but also vowed to ‘change an unjust system’
The loudest honks — and the most flashing headlights — came for Manuel Ellis and his grieving family at the urging of Tacoma’s mayor.
Gathered in the parking lot of Cheney Stadium on Monday night, hundreds arrived for what was billed as a “drive-in conversation around racial reconciliation.”
What they got was much more.
Yes, there were calls for unity and forgiveness, but there was also hurt, anger, exhaustion, demands for police reform and repeated calls to action.
Eventually, Tacoma might heal from the death of Ellis in police custody.
Eventually, we might enact the kind of change necessary to ensure it never happens again.
But it won’t happen overnight, and it won’t be easy.
“I wanted the Ellis family to know that this isn’t about me. This is about support for them ... I signed up to be mayor. They didn’t sign up for this loss,” Victoria Woodards explained afterward of her turn on stage, which began with the socially distanced show of support for Ellis’ family.
“I wanted a moment for them to know that this community cares about them and cares about their loss,” Woodards said.
Monday night’s drive-in event had been in the works for more than a week, Woodards said. Organized in part by the Rev. Gregory Christopher of Shiloh Baptist, the Tacoma Ministerial Alliance, the Tacoma NAACP, Associated Ministries and OURChurch, the impetus for the gathering predated the homicide finding in Ellis’ death being reported by The News Tribune.
Still in recent days, the need for such a gathering — and a first, baby step toward community repentance and forgiveness — became even more urgent, Woodards said.
Would it be too soon for many? Of course, the mayor acknowledged.
Are tensions still rightfully high and simmering? Certainly.
Can a community truly reach reconciliation before the wrongs are righted? Certainly not. It will take more than kumbaya, the mayor noted.
But you have to start somewhere, Woodards reasoned.
“Who would have known, a week and a half ago when (Rev. Christopher) said let’s do this on race and reconciliation, that we would be here, and we would really need race and reconciliation in the community,” Woodards said.
“It’s about moving forward together to change an unjust system.”
On stage, the mayor, like many of the evening’s speakers — from City Council member Keith Blocker, to Tacoma-Pierce County Black Collective co-chair Lyle Quasim and New Beginnings Christian Fellowship pastor Leslie Braxton — spoke with urgency and passion. Many referenced the toll of oppression forced on black Americans in a white supremacist society. Most looked toward faith to help empower and cleanse.
At one point, Woodards exclaimed, “COVID ain’t got nothing on racism,” comparing one crisis to another, again eliciting honks from the rows of parked cars and impassioned cries of “amen” from those mingling, with masks, near the stage.
Afterward, as a black woman and Tacoma’s mayor, Woodards discussed the pain of the last week, from learning Ellis’ death had been ruled a homicide to seeing the videos that inspired her to speak out more directly and forcefully than any time during her tenure as mayor.
It was one of the mayor’s first interviews since publicly proclaiming last week that the officers involved with Ellis’ death should be fired and prosecuted.
Woodards said she stood by her comments, based on “what I know at this moment, and what I have in front of me.”
Speaking up so forcefully, the mayor reiterated, was largely influenced videos captured by an eye witness and released late last week, documenting part of Ellis’ ultimately fatal encounter with Tacoma police.
In one of the videos, the witness can be heard saying, “Hey! Stop! Oh my God, stop hitting him. Just arrest him. Just arrest him. Oh my God, that looks so scary.”
“The video didn’t change what I already knew. The video caused me to say, ‘I have to say something. I have to say something for my community,’” Woodards explained. “When I saw the video, I couldn’t be silent. I felt like my community was looking to me, ‘Mayor, where are you?’ … They were looking to me to say something, and I did.”
There’s been a price to that, too. Tacoma’s police union, for one, has been critical of what it describes as the mayor’s rush to judgment, while others, including the lawyer representing Ellis’ family, have argued that it’s too little, too late.
During her time on stage, and again after, Woodards spoke of her flaws, as a human, and the need to show people grace even during the most trying times.
“I don’t always say the right thing. I don’t always do the right thing. But I try,” Woodards said.
“I don’t have all of the answers,” the mayor continued.
“But I know we have a community that is full of ideas and answers.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 5:05 AM.
