The story is distressingly familiar. A black man calls out “I can’t breathe” and dies as police physically restrain him.
But rather than the well-known story of George Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis has triggered widespread outrage and national protests, this is the story of Manuel Ellis, who died in Tacoma. Last week, the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Ellis died in March of respiratory arrest due to hypoxia due to physical restraint. Contributing factors included methamphetamine intoxication and an enlarged heart.
There was no national outcry for Ellis. No protests in front of the White House. No viral video to spark calls for action. But his death is no less tragic and no less meaningful than Floyd’s. And it represents the deep divide that must be bridged to advance race relations in this nation and rebuild faith in police departments.
Washington residents have called for that faith to be restored, approving Initiative 940 in 2018 with 60 percent of the vote. The measure rewrote statewide standards for the use of deadly force and added de-escalation techniques and mental health training for officers. Before that, state law shielded officers from prosecution so long as they acted “without malice” — a nebulous standard that was regarded as the most lenient in the nation and which provided nearly blanket protection for law enforcement.
The ballot measure was the result of three years of contentious debate between law enforcement representatives and advocates for criminal justice reform, some legislative shortcuts and a state Supreme Court ruling. The law is imperfect, requiring prosecutors to use a “subjective good faith test” when considering whether to charge an officer in a questionable death. The Legislature should continue to work on improving the standards, seeking a balance between holding law enforcement accountable while allowing officers to effectively perform their jobs.
That should not be viewed as a binary choice. Advocating for policing reform and demanding accountability for law enforcement does not make one anti-police. It is possible, indeed necessary, to expect officers to follow the law as well as enforce it. And it is a moral obligation to call out racist acts, whether perpetrated by citizens or officers. The vast majority of officers are noble public servants who are besmirched by the nefarious actions of a few.
Floyd’s death has exposed wounds to the American psyche, drawing much-needed attention to a long history of police violence against African Americans. Two weeks before an officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, police in Louisville, Ky. — executing a search warrant –used a battering ram to crash into the apartment of Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death after a confrontation. The list goes on, contributing to a week of mostly peaceful protests demanding racial justice.
In Seattle, those protests have been accompanied by 14,000 complaints about police actions — including the use of pepper spray, flash-bang devices and tear gas — to the city’s Office of Police Accountability. In Washington, D.C., they led to peaceful demonstrators being cleared from outside the White House by tear gas so President Trump could walk to a nearby church for a photo opportunity.
When the pepper spray and the tear gas and the demonstrations subside, the United States must face a reckoning of how to address social justice and how to properly hold law enforcement accountable. Washington has a good framework in place to answer those questions.
It is tragic the answers will come too late for Manuel Ellis.
