US Attorney’s statement regarding review of Ellis case is insulting | Opinion
There’s one word to describe what the U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Washington did Thursday evening: disrespectful.
In a brief statement, the head of the Justice Department outpost said it had finished its civil rights review of the state’s criminal case against police involved in the struggle that left Tacoma resident Manuel Ellis dead in March 2020. That’s the point in the statement where you would expect the federal government’s lawyers to say anything at all about what they found.
But they didn’t.
“After a careful and thorough review, the Department of Justice has closed its inquiry,” the statement reads.
That’s it. No findings.
A spokesperson for the US Attorney’s office said that it’s unusual for the agency to announce an inquiry to begin with, and it’s limited in what it can say when closing an inquiry.
But whatever the reason for the abrupt closure of the case, the brief statement is disrespectful to Ellis’ family, to Washington residents served by Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller’s office, and to the officers whose conduct was under review.
It raises doubts about the inquiry, which was taken up in 2024 under the leadership of Miller’s predecessor, Tessa Gorman. Gorman’s office announced the investigation after three officers were acquitted in a trial over state felony charges in the death of Ellis, whose last words were, “I can’t breathe.” A coroner later found Ellis, who went by Manny, died of oxygen deprivation due to physical restraint.
Gorman was ousted from the role of U.S. Attorney and replaced by Miller earlier this year under the Trump administration. This casts a further pall over the vague outcome of the inquiry.
In the absence of more information, it’s easy to point out that this outcome avoids blowback for Miller from either Democrat-dominated Washington state politicians or the federal Trumpers. Now no one can say the U.S. Attorney is parroting belligerent rhetoric from DC on wokeness and the anti-police left. But she also doesn’t have to take heat from her bosses if she announces any findings of wrongdoing by the police officers involved.
What’s more, she doesn’t give any grist to the efforts of Ellis’ family in civil court. Their lawyer is positioned to file another lawsuit based on any new findings of police misconduct.
Still, I tend to think it would have gone over fine for Miller to say her staff found no wrongdoing if that was in fact what happened. The landscape has changed in the five years since the death of George Floyd galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement and kicked off widespread conversations about racism and the use of force in policing.
Since then, concepts like defunding the police and reforms that restrained police intervention have become political liabilities. Along the way, the moral heart of the conversation — under what circumstances a person pays with their life for how they respond to police orders — has been drowned out.
There’s plenty to debate about how things ended up this way, but the result is clear. Many people blame these deaths on the actions of imperfect people who disobey the police. And they’re OK with that.
The moment that gave rise to the DOJ’s “unusual” decision to announce an inquiry has clearly passed. So much so that I don’t think Miller would pay much of a political price for saying her office found nothing in its review. But we got less than that.
Intentionally or not, the U.S. Attorney has avoided any kind of political interpretation of her office’s work. Either way, it sends a message. It’s something more subtle than Trump’s vitriol towards people who advocate for police accountability, but it still stings.
Case closed, and you get no further information.
