By Steve Pomper
Cops today count themselves fortunate if they have a chief or sheriff who has their backs—and demonstrates it. Some top cops talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk (I made that up). Instead, they slip and fall in the toxic woke slime they spew. Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore recently fell in spectacular fashion.
Unfortunately for cops in Tacoma, Washington, if they didn’t know it before, they just learned, big-time, they’re working for Chief Wokeness. This observation stems from the recent acquittal of three Tacoma police officers wrongly charged with murder and manslaughter, thanks to Washington State AG Bob “I-Hate-Cops” Ferguson, in the overdose death of Manuel Ellis, who’d attacked and fought officers.
According to Peter Talbot at the Tacoma News Tribune, cutting to the proverbial chase, “The attorneys Anne Bremner and Mark Conrad, said that when ‘political motivations and narratives’ are stripped away, the case was about mental health and drug addiction.” Nailed it!
Shooting off the Woke Richter scale, Chief Moore essentially accused all American cops, but especially (now-former) Tacoma Officers Matthew Collins, Christopher Burbank, and Timothy Rankine, of having a “detrimental impact… on Black [sic], Indigenous [sic], and People of Color [sic] (BIPOC) communities….” And then he apologized to the BIPOC universe on behalf of himself and his officers (who have zero reason to apologize), saying he was “extending a personal and collective apology.” Ick!
He also accused cops of “oppression, abuse, and dehumanization…” and hid it in his “awareness of the historical context of policing carried out under the color of law.” Translation: Nothing has changed since the ‘60s—the 1860s.
The above comments came as Moore added to a statement he’s made, celebrating three of his officers acquitted of charges they would not have faced but for corrupt, anti-police politicians. Wait. He was celebrating, right? This is good news, right? But maybe he wasn’t so celebratory, after all. Read on and you tell me.
Chief Moore stated, “While acknowledging our incomplete achievement of reform goals in the past decade, the last two years have witnessed substantial efforts to revolutionize the Tacoma Police Department, placing a strong emphasis on fostering inclusivity and pride among all stakeholders. These strides are a result of a collective endeavor.”
“Revolutionize… fostering inclusivity… stakeholders… collective endeavor….” He must carry a pocket Woke Thesaurus the same way many cops carry a pocket U.S. Constitution.
On second thought, maybe Moore wasn’t celebrating, after all. Apparently, he’d prefer to see his police officers serve lengthy prison sentences—like life? He knows they were doing their jobs as trained. He knows the evidence that contradicts the original narrative “witnesses” claimed that the officers saw Ellis, took him down, and killed him.
In one of two NPA articles on this topic, I wrote about Interim Tacoma Police Chief Mike Ake who, at the time, had “announced he’d exonerated two Tacoma police officers of any department policy violations. The findings are a result of internal investigations related to the in-custody death of Manuel Ellis in March 2020. According to KING 5 News, Chief Ake announced the findings on Dec. 21, during a City Council meeting.”
Following this exoneration, in an article at Lifezette, I wrote, “Here we go again. Washington State Attorney General (AG) Bob Ferguson has charged Tacoma Police officers with murder and manslaughter for what appears to be doing their jobs.”
I’m sure Ferguson would approve of Moore’s condemning of the use of force policy “at the time” that “‘guided him [the officer]’ in his decision…” (you know, to “murder” Ellis). Couldn’t the answer be the officers did their jobs right? Moore is currently revising department policy with the help of “the Community’s Police Advisory Committee….” [link added] Oh, goody!
According to Officer Rankine’s attorney, Tacoma Fire Dept staff attached a heart monitor to Ellis, which “proved” he and the two other officers didn’t cause “Ellis’ death.” The officers’ attorneys also “alleged prosecutors withheld exculpatory information from their expert witnesses and ignored the data during the trial.” Imagine that!
Similar to Saint George Floyd, Saint Ellis reportedly had a high concentration of drugs on board and suffered from comorbidities, including an enlarged heart, which attorneys said show Ellis, like Floyd, died of a drug OD.
The radical left regarded this persecution as a test case for I-940, the so-called police reform, but really anti-cop, laws passed in 2019, making it easier to prosecute cops. Since passage, these laws have been rolled back or “clarified,” as law enforcement predicted.
The prosecution claimed Ellis told the officers he couldn’t breathe. Only one officer said he heard him but apparently didn’t take him seriously while dodging the suspect’s knuckles. Does that matter? Suspects say all kinds of stuff to manipulate officers and bystanders, attempting to evoke sympathy. No cop is obligated to comply with every demand a suspect makes. This is especially true when the suspect (“who can’t breathe”) is still resisting and assaulting officers, as video showed.
What is it with cop-haters who take everything suspects say at face value but discount everything cops say even despite evidence?
A jury found Officers Collins and Burbank not guilty of murder and manslaughter and not guilty of manslaughter for Officer Rankine. Reportedly, they also committed no policy violations, except for when Officer Collins hurt the suspect’s feelings when he told him to “Shut the f**k up, man.” Reportedly, they rapped Officer Collins’ knuckles for being “rude”—to someone who’d just assaulted police officers. To paraphrase Dirty Harry, “Well, I’m sure he was all broken up about that man’s feelings.”
To add to the repulsion, Chief Moore persuaded the officers to take $500,000 (I’ll admit, that’s not a hard ask) each to voluntarily resign rather than resume their careers in Tacoma (Why would they want to work for him?). Hopefully some non-woke jurisdictions that appreciate cops will make them offers).
Saint Ellis’ family is pissed these cops could still get jobs in other departments. Who cares if they were legally cleared of wrongdoing? The agreement allowed them to keep their state certifications. The family’s attorney, James Bible, is also miffed. He’d rather perpetuate the radical leftist myth created around this incident, ignore the acquittal, and “warn” other communities about the “dangers” these police officers pose (What, like enforcing the law?).
Regardless, not satisfied with the jury’s verdict, “the family” not only wants Biden’s anti-cop DOJ to investigate the acquitted officers but also to endoscope the entire department and insert a bogus consent decree.
As Noah Webster at Law Enforcement Today so accurately wrote, “Given the Biden DOJ’s love for police officers–except the US Capitol Police–it appears they will likely get their way.”
And, right on cue, U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman announced they are investigating, i.e., searching for federal crimes, which they’ll likely find (maybe already have). Here’s a DOJ motto for this case: three police suspects, no waiting; no crime necessary?
Radical leftist activists such as the Tacoma Action Collective, which opposes “systemic oppression and systemic violence and was co-founded by a sitting [Tacoma] city council member, Jamika Scott, is also upset—and really, really, really hates cops. The organization complained on social media the Tacoma and Pierce County “failed” Ellis and his family on the night he died, a failure they complain continues.
For evidence of thier cop-hating, there’s this charming text from their FB page: “In a just world the court’s decision denying the defense motions, standing alone, should have been more than enough to fire the pigs.” That was just one of five “pig” references to police officers in that one post.
Officer Rankine said one reason he took Moore’s offer was his concern for his fellow officers still serving in Tacoma and because his family had received physical threats to their safety. It’s easy to believe both reasons are exceedingly valid—for all of the officers to whom I wish good luck.
This article originally appeared at the National Police Association and was reprinted with permission.
