The Tacoma cops who killed Manuel Ellis want to evade justice. We can’t let them | Opinion

On March 3, 2020, Manuel Ellis was killed on 96th Street and Ainsworth Avenue by members of the Tacoma Police Department. Before Ellis’ body was cold on the ground, a conspiracy of defamation of the victim and misinformation for public consumption was undertaken by the officers at the scene, the police department and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

Ellis’ death predates the killing of George Floyd that triggered a wave of protests around the country. Derek Chauvin, the officer who murdered Floyd on May 25, 2020, was sentenced to 21 years in prison, over a year ago, and is serving his sentence in a federal prison in Tucson. The officers who killed Ellis, two months before Floyd, remain on a now three-and-a-half-year-long administrative leave — with full pay and benefits. But because of the cover-up executed by the officers, beginning the evening of Ellis’ killing, the family has been denied justice and our city has avoided its reckoning.

The original statements provided to the public by Pierce County Sheriff Ed Troyer were at best misleading. In a June statement about the killing, Troyer referenced the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, suggesting that “this was not that type of incident,” as the Seattle Times and others have reported. This was a lie.

Troyer claimed that Ellis attacked the officer’s vehicle. This was contradicted by multiple eyewitnesses, as the News Tribune previously reported. Troyer also made sure to bring up Ellis’ struggles with substance abuse. But in describing the encounter, Troyer declined to mention that officers hogtied Ellis, put a spit hood on him (further constricting his airway) and ignored his repeated cries he was having trouble breathing. Troyer also didn’t mention that when Ellis pleaded “I can’t breathe” an officer reportedly yelled at him to “shut the (expletive) up!” according to media reports and the Attorney General’s Office.

The officers’ statements in their reports about Ellis’ conduct and their role in his murder are also contradicted by eyewitnesses and by Ring camera footage gathered by the Attorney General’s Office. Officers claim Ellis attacked their vehicle — witnesses state otherwise as the Guardian reported. Officers claim Ellis showed near superhuman strength, as KNKX reported — video shows them punching Ellis in the face repeatedly while he was already on the ground. The officers involved now refuse to cooperate with investigators from both their department and the Attorney General’s Office, nor will they grant interviews with local media, as KNKX’s “The Walk Home” has documented.

While on this taxpayer-funded extended vacation, one officer, Matthew Collins, left the state and retrained for another career, the Seattle Times reported earlier this year.

I am not an anarchist, and this is not an anti-police crusade. This is a call for justice and for us to collectively have higher expectations for those we give the power over life and death. Police in the US are given wide authority over the use of force in our system. It’s clear from the charging documents that the officers acted in a callous manner and used unnecessary force, and their actions killed Ellis.

Throughout the upcoming case, the attorneys for the officers are going to try to put Ellis on trial. They’ll cite his history of drug use. They’ll dredge up his prior record — but none of the offenses they’ll hurl at the jury, hoping they stick, are punishable by death.

Ellis won’t be there to defend himself because Tacoma police officers murdered him.

The attorneys will also put the Pierce County Medical Examiner on trial. The defense will try to pick apart their report that stated Ellis died from hypoxia, a lack of oxygen, “due to physical restraint.” They’ll accuse the office of misconduct and incompetence.

The defense will do literally anything at trial to avoid talking about the violent and egregious conduct of the officers that evening.

The city’s leadership has notably gone silent, likely on the advice of city attorneys. But in the immediate aftermath, the mayor saw the incident for what it was, calling for the officers to be terminated and prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law.” The Ellis family and the community deserve justice and if the courts can’t deliver it, the protests and unrest, even riots that may follow will be earned and deserved.

I have dedicated my adult life to educating students about the American government and about the importance of checks and balances. It is a story as old as John Locke and Baron Montesquieu. There must be checks on how we allow law enforcement, as agents of the state, to conduct their duties. But in our polarized political environment it feels like we are in danger of losing that centuries-old lesson.

Law enforcement officers in the United States are professionalized, generously compensated and given broad authority to use force. But that is not the same as a blank check.

When people granted the public trust violate that authority, for the good of all of us, they must be held to account.

This story was originally published September 28, 2023 at 5:00 AM.