Tacoma mayor says we need to change police training, mindset

In March, police officers attempted to arrest Manuel Ellis in Tacoma, which ended in his death and has been ruled a homicide. There were similarities to George Floyd’s death, including Ellis saying, “I can’t breathe.” Mayor Victoria Woodards of Tacoma previously said she thinks the police involved in Ellis’ death need to be fired and prosecuted.

“My focus has really been on a full and complete investigation, and getting that for the Ellis family,” Woodards told Seattle’s Morning News.

Washington State Patrol to investigate Manuel Ellis’ death in police custody

As reform is discussed across the country and in Tacoma, Woodards said it’s going to be important to look at police officer training and answer questions about how officers could respond in similar cases to avoid death or harm.

“They are to protect and serve, that is their charge,” Woodards said. “But obviously that could mean a lot of different things in different situations. And as we think about things like ‘8 Can’t Wait’ that bans chokeholds, that bans shooting at moving cars, those kinds of things, those are the kinds of things that de-escalate those situations.”

De-escalation training is something Woodards said she will be proposing moving forward.

“We are going to have to look at how we innovate police officers,” she said. “When we’ve got this whole movement around defund the police, I think that is about changing the way we do business. And is it going to be more important to save life? Or is it gonna be more important to take someone to jail?”

“I think every time people are going to say it’s more important to save life, as long as that does not compromise the life of someone else,” Woodards added.

Based on the information Woodards has today, she said she still feels as certain as she did two weeks ago that the officers involved in this case need to be tried.

“But I called for three things,” she said. “A full investigation — on all the videos we’re seeing, all of the evidence, and then having that evidence turned over to our city manager, who I trust will make the final decision and take the necessary action.”

Dave Ross asked the mayor why she thinks we keep seeing cases like Ellis’ even though there was a person of color involved in the arrest of Manny Ellis and there are more black local leaders today, including mayors and police chiefs.

“If I had the answer to that question, I could solve the world’s problems,” Woodards said. “… I am but one person. … Carmen Best, who I graduated high school with in Seattle, is but one person.”

“We don’t control individuals. We may manage individuals, we may have say so over the systems that they are in. But when an officer, when somebody’s in that situation, it all comes down to that individual in that place, at that time,” she added.

She believes the training officers receive and the life experiences they’ve had come into play, but says it’s also about the individual person who makes the call.

“We can blame it on the system, absolutely, because the way that they respond is the way that they’ve been trained to respond and that’s what our system has told them is the right thing to do,” Woodards said.

Tacoma mayor vows ‘meaningful, thorough’ reform to police department

The mayor said she fully believes there are people who dream of being police officers from a young age, and for many of those who go into it, “it’s a calling, and they have a gift, and they really want to serve.”

“I know four black women who are police officers who graduated in my same class who are serving today, and I believe that about all of them,” Woodards said. “But if … with the training they receive, what gets into their heads, if that’s what they’re told to do, then that’s how they react.”

“We’ve got to change how we train our police officers and the mindset that we give them to do the job.”

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