Tacoma’s Manny Ellis deserves the justice Breonna Taylor didn’t get
The pain, anguish and outrage we see in Louisville have a home here, too.
The same trauma, exhaustion and desperation felt around the country are palpable right here in Tacoma.
As a city and a nation reckons with a lone indictment in the police killing of Breonna Taylor — watching as a single officer faces charges for firing his weapon into a neighboring apartment while the two who shot and killed Taylor go unpunished — we should also be thinking about one of our own.
Manny Ellis.
On Wednesday a Louisville grand jury failed Taylor, her family and those who rightfully demanded justice and accountability. After reviewing the evidence, the slap-on-the-hand grand jury indictment of detective Brett Hankison — on charges unrelated to Taylor’s death — surely felt all too familiar to Black Americans.
In Tacoma, Pierce County and Washington state, we’re up next.
Ellis and his family deserve better.
Only days separated the death of Ellis and Taylor, forever linking them during a year when the underbelly of America’s racism has been laid bare. On a long list of names — each one representing the life of a Black person in this country killed at the hands of police — tragically, they came to represent two more.
Ellis, who struggled with mental illness and addiction, died March 3. Splayed out by police on the Tacoma asphalt, his familiar words that night: “I can’t breath.”
Just 10 days later, in Kentucky, Taylor had her life taken by a deluge of police bullets during a careless and badly botched drug raid.
While both cases elicited national headlines and resounding cries for swift justice, at least in Taylor’s case we now know the unsatisfying events that came next.
Three months ago credit card companies, football teams and national chains Tweeted that #BlackLivesMatter, but in the end — at least in the eyes of the law and those who claim to uphold it in Louisville — Taylor’s simply didn’t.
So will Manny Ellis’ life matter, in the eyes of those who uphold the law in Washington? If the evidence shows Tacoma police officers murdered Ellis like it should have shown Louisville officers murdered Taylor, will the outcome here be any different?
Here’s an even more telling question:
Given the racist roots of this country and how police killings of a Black Americans have historically been condoned, does anyone really have faith that it will be?
Unfortunately, the prospect of even-handed justice in his case has already been cast into serious doubt by local law enforcement agencies and leaders we should be able to trust.
As Patrick Malone of the Seattle Times painstakingly reported last week, the immediate investigation that followed Ellis’ death by the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office was filled with missteps, delays, callous deception and unforgivable flaws.
On June 17, an obvious conflict of interest led Gov. Jay Inslee to put the Washington State Patrol in charge of the investigation, and the ultimate decision of whether the state believes police officers committed a crime in the hands of the Attorney General’s Office.
It was the right decision, but it was also three months ago.
As the investigation into Ellis’ death grinds slowly on, his family is forced to wait for answers.
This week, in the case of Breonna Taylor’s death, a Louisville grand jury delivered another stark lesson in perverted American justice.
It also served as a reminder that we should all be watching what happens in the Manny Ellis case closely, knowing full well what’s at stake.
When the time comes — and it should come as soon as possible — the evidence collected in Ellis’ death must be weighed fairly, without the blinders of bias or preferential treatment for police.
Sadly, that’s a bare minimum Taylor didn’t receive.
In June, when I spoke to Monet Carter-Mixon, Ellis’ sister, she had a simple request.
She wanted people to remember her older brother as a “funny, talented, charismatic man — and a loving man.”
It doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
Our justice system, however, would seem to have an even lower bar to clear.
When judgment day comes, will Manny Ellis be treated as human?
Or, like Breonna Taylor and so many Black Americans before her, will the system treat Ellis as something less?
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 12:37 PM.
