Want the deaths of Manuel Ellis and George Floyd to matter? Transform policing forever
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The police death of Manuel Ellis
More than a year after Manuel Ellis died in police custody, the attorney general charged three officers in his death.
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There are no silver linings in the death of Tacoma’s Manuel Ellis. There is no comfort to be taken — at least not yet — and no solace in the notion that he didn’t die “in vain,” regardless of what happens in court.
Yes, on Thursday — after more than a year of waiting — Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced serious criminal charges have been filed against three Tacoma police officers in Ellis’ death. And, yes, there’s little doubt that the 33-year-old’s demise at the hands of law enforcement helped to propel the long overdue police accountability laws that emerged from the state Capitol in Olympia this year. Nationally, the death of Ellis in Tacoma and George Floyd in Minneapolis — both marked by ignored pleas of “I can’t breathe”caught on video — have clearly served as a catalyst for necessary change.
But the fact remains: Manny Ellis is dead, and he shouldn’t be.
On a day of local reaction and introspection, it’s something none of us should forget.
“Manuel Ellis did not give his life for the possibility of police accountability in Washington State,” the Tacoma Action Collective, which has been at the forefront of calls for justice and reform, aptly reminded all of us in a statement released Thursday afternoon, not long before members of the group joined the Ellis family at a press conference at the Eastside Community Center.
“He is not a martyr. He was murdered. His life was stolen,” the blistering statement continued.
Since Ellis’ death in police custody on March 3, 2020, an entire community has struggled to make sense of what happened, including grappling with discrepancies and troubling contradictions. Particularly in times of uncertainty, it’s only human for us to try to give meaning to the loss, because without meaning, what do we have, and how do we move forward?
Still, as tempting and selfishly comforting as that exercise might be, it’s one we should strongly resist rushing toward. Not only does it risk reducing Ellis to a character in a tragic play, in many cases it also minimizes the only way to truly make sure his death stands for something more than another statistic or chronicle of police brutality.
Providing justice for Manny Ellis is not about charges. It’s not about holding three officers to account. It’s not about weeding out “bad apples,” one by one or case by case. Thursday provided no closure, and any detached viewing — waiting for tidy bows to be tied, or reassurances that the system will redeem itself without being overhauled — is a naive, delusional sign of privilege.
Rather, the only way to begin righting this wrong — and the wrongs that have come before and since — is to transform policing as we’ve always known it, in Tacoma and across the nation.
If there is a lesson to be learned from the death of Ellis and Floyd, that’s it. We must turn policing into something that reflects our values and the sanctity of every life — regardless of color or circumstance — as formidable as that task will be.
It’s that simple and precisely that challenging.
Through no choice of their own, Floyd and Ellis will now be forever linked. Their deaths will symbolize police work gone terribly wrong and just how many obstacles stand in front of us if we hope to do better.
On Thursday, Ellis family attorney James Bible drew the comparison that’s unavoidable. In Minneapolis, he said, cops spoke up about what happened to George Floyd, which is one of many reasons why Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin, has already been convicted.
By contrast, in Tacoma and Pierce County, Bible said, local law enforcement — including the sheriff’s department — sought to obstruct, obscure and mislead from the start, delaying the prospect of justice and exacerbating a family’s pain in the process. Ellis, who was unarmed at the time of his death, was quickly painted as an addict and aggressor, in what can only be described as a callous attempt to posthumously justify his killing.
That’s time — and anguish — we can never make up for. And it’s shameful.
After Bible spoke, Ellis’ mother, Marcia Carter, took the stage. Standing before the cameras, the grieving parent said her son was chosen by God, as “a sacrifice” to “expose the corruption that is in our City Council, this whole state.”
As personal and heartfelt as they were, her words were followed by a challenge to all of us, one extending far beyond the divine.
“The criminal system needs to be made over,” Carter said.
She’s exactly right. The only true justice we can now bestow upon the Ellis family is overdue change, which will require courage and conviction, and not simply convictions of the officers involved.
Right now, far too many are willing to defend kneeling on a man’s neck for nine minutes or replying “shut the (expletive) up” to a man struggling to take his last breaths as part of being a cop, which is all the evidence we need to know that what it means to be a cop must change.
Want the valor and glory that comes with a career in law enforcement, a dangerous job that carries with it the public’s trust? Great.
Treat every life with the respect it deserves, particularly in times of crisis.
That’s the job.
If this wasn’t clear prior to Thursday, it must be from now on.
This story was originally published May 28, 2021 at 11:14 AM.
