“I can’t breathe,” were the last words of George Floyd, whose death has stoked an international response against American police brutality and amplified the voice of Tacoma resident, Manuel “Manny” Ellis, who struggled to utter these same words as he died in the custody of the Tacoma Police Department, just 10 weeks before Floyd’s murder. We have a responsibility, as a community, to ensure no one gasps these words again in response to a police encounter.

This police brutality is even more disturbing in light of the twin crises of COVID-19 and financial collapse intersecting with our country’s legacy of racism to create a “pandemic within a pandemic” for Black communities. COVID-19 claims Black lives at shockingly higher rates, compounding generations of structural and environmental racism. Our nationwide recession and austerity measures will cause job, housing, and healthcare losses to hit these same communities the hardest. Many, metaphorically and literally, “can’t breathe.”

Tacoma is no exception.The News Tribune has projected a city general fund budget shortfall of $40 million this year, and Fox Q13 projects a $67.2 million loss the next biennium. Our social programs seem to be on the chopping block, precisely when people need help the most, but the police budget has, up to this point, been frustratingly untouchable. $175.5 million in police funding devoured 34% of the city’s general fund this biennium and austerity measures elsewhere could drive this up even more.

The demand for police divestment and community investment is a longtime centerpiece of the Movement For Black Lives’ national platform, but the insurmountable power of police departments has made it impossible at local levels. Now, a national uprising against racist policing is making the impossible a reality. The Minneapolis City Council passed a veto-proof vote to disband the police. The Mayor of Los Angeles cut $150 million from the LAPD, to instead invest in black and brown communities. A majority of Seattle’s City Council have pledged a 50% cut to the police budget. The City of Tacoma must follow suit and make good on their commitment to the transformation of our racist systems. A 50% cut to the Tacoma Police Department general fund budget would, by our estimate, offset other austerity measures, with change to spare.

Join us by signing this petition to call on City of Tacoma leadership to defund the police in upcoming budget decision-making as well as take action in solidarity with helping to get #JusticeforManuelEllis. Black Lives Matter.