How Tacoma Killed A Generation Of Black Liberals

The killing of Manny Ellis is unsurprising for this Tacoma resident

People listen during a vigil for Manuel Ellis, a black man whose March death while in Tacoma Police custody was recently found to be a homicide. Photo: David Ryder/Getty Images

The last time I got stopped by a Tacoma policeman, it was early February 2018.

I walked up G Street to the Best Western (now the Tacoma Dome Hotel) when I heard the feet of someone behind me, moving fast. I turned and saw a slightly portly shadow that I couldn’t recognize. I moved forward and started to run at him ’til the streetlight came on — and revealed that the shadow was a cop.

Petrified and wanting to deescalate the situation, I told him how sorry I was. “Please, it was in the dark. I didn’t know who you were,” I said. “I didn’t mean any harm by running up on you.” We went through the usual stages: He asked for my ID. I told him I would pull it slowly out of my back pocket. He asked me who I was and where I was going. I told him that I was a writer going to a diversity conference the next day.

“So, you’re gonna talk about me?” he asked.

For a moment, I thought I got his rhetorical gist. But I took a second look at him and was surprised. He wasn’t like any of the big, steroidal Tacoma cops who had stopped me in the previous 30 years. No, he was round and scruffy headed. He had a tremor in his dimples that made it look like he had a pout. His…