The Trial of the Tacoma Police Officers who Murdered Manuel Ellis
Happy Sunday,
Over on the podcast this week, we have a conversation with Brian Lettinga from Search Associates. He’s a recruiter/matchmaker for educators looking to find work in international schools. My wife and I used Search Associates in 2018, when we did our job search. If you’re an educator thinking about making the switch, the conversation is a good starting point.
I mentioned last week that I was working on an op-ed about the upcoming trial of members of the Tacoma Police Department in the murder of Manuel Ellis in 2020. Jury selection began last week and I touch on that down below. My op-ed was published on Thursday. For those unfamiliar with the case, you should read it but here’s the most pertinent portion:
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 his initial statement about the killing, made in June, Troyer referenced the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and falsely assured citizens “this was not that type of incident.” This was a lie.
Troyer then claimed that Ellis attacked the officer’s vehicle. This was contradicted by multiple eyewitnesses. Troyer 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 breathing), 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 f--- up!” according to media reports and the Attorney General’s Office.
While on this taxpayer-funded extended vacation, one officer, Matthew Collins, left the state and retrained for another career, according to the Seattle Times.
There’s more, but that’s the meat of it.
Members of the Tacoma Action Collective added a thread¹ that provided additional context I didn’t bring up in the op-ed. There’s an entire book to be written about the malfeasance and serial blind eyes turned in this killing—every possible institutional check & balance failed the Ellis family and the community.
The first of TAC’s posts addresses the time period between Ellis’ murder in March and the Medical Examiner’s Report ruling his death a homicide in June. The facts in Ellis’ death were apparent and available to leaders of both the Tacoma Police Department and the sheriff's office but they kept the public and elected officials largely in the dark until the Medical Examiner’s Report forced their hand.
They next addressed the insufficient investigation of the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, led by Ed Troyer. Watching both the city and the county fail to act, forced activists and the Ellis family to take their campaign to the Attorney General and the Governor. We would not be having a trial at all without their efforts.
Here’s a link to the full thread. Jury selection in the trial should conclude Monday.
Speaking of jury selection, thanks to reporting from Peter Talbot, here are some of the potential jurors with concerning conflicts:
Juror 87 is an active police officer.
Juror 93 is “the wife of an officer who was convicted of embezzling from a fund started for the four Lakewood police officers killed by a gunman in 2009.” I won’t link to the story on that incident to prevent from doxing the potential juror.
Juror 111 said on his questionnaire he has “more than 30 years experience in law enforcement” working with the King County Sheriff’s Department. According to Talbot, 111 is now retired but was a supervisor for 17 years.
As best I can tell, all three are still a part of the jury pool and opening statements are scheduled for Tuesday.
I will be following the trial closely and will likely dedicate an episode or two of the podcast to covering it. But it’s worth recapping some things not in dispute:
Ellis was killed by Tacoma Police.
They hogtied him and put a spit hood on him, despite complaints he could not breathe.
Law enforcement officers from several jurisdictions were present at the killing or in the immediate aftermath but did not initially publicly report so.
The version of events reported by the officers and given to the public does not remotely match eye-witness accounts nor available video.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office, in particular, conducted a shoddy investigation, keeping news about the incident out of the headlines.
Local elected officials were very outspoken about the incident but have all caught a case of “ongoing litigation” and “on advice from counsel” fever.
The officers have declined to cooperate with investigators and have been on paid leave for over three years.
None of those facts are in dispute.
If you want to know more about this case, I suggest you listen to The Walk Home from KNKX, follow Peter Talbot, local criminal justice reporter, and follow Tacoma Action Collective.
I will be back next week with some thoughts about Meta’s decision to roll out AI for WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger and the failure of VR to capture market share, despite being around since 1994.
As always, if you have any thoughts or feedback about the newsletter, I welcome it, and I really appreciate it when folks share Takes & Typos with their friends.
¹Many of you know my feelings about the platform Twitter/X. These are links to tweets and Twitter profiles using a service called Nitter. Nitter is a free and open-source alternative front-end for the social media platform Twitter. It allows users to access and interact with Twitter content without directly using Twitter's official website or mobile apps.
As always, if you have any thoughts or feedback about the newsletter, I welcome it, and I really appreciate it when folks share the newsletter with their friends.