October 2023 Community Newsletter

A message from the retiring Executive Director Becky Errera

To the Northwest Community Bail Fund,

Here I am, in the earliest days of my retirement, looking back on my time with NCBF. It’s been quite a journey. When I started as a volunteer meeting the founder in a coffee shop in August 2017, I anticipated the 10 hours a week that I would dedicate to building a volunteer infrastructure would take some of the pressure off of one person doing all the work. Little did I know!

The volunteer infrastructure has grown from a few scattered individual connections to a robust cadre of supporters with regular meetings and assigned tasks that are overseen by paid staff. Many of our earliest volunteers are still active or are still in touch. Many are still donors. The dedication of this group can still astound me. It’s often understated that our steadiest volunteers are those that serve on the board, and in this area too, we’ve been gifted with some amazingly dedicated individuals. And then there’s the staff. When I started in that coffee shop, I could never have dreamed of the evolution into being part of such a talented, caring, challenging and dedicated team.

Along the way, we’ve passed through the usual stages, and some unusual ones, including a brief time when we were out past midnight and up at dawn to pass off jail watch and bail out duties along with literal wads of cash, all because you, our donors, believed in our mission. In those days, when the jail courtyard was full, we would walk out of the jail to cheers and applause – what a heady experience!

Working and growing alongside the donors, volunteers, supporters and staff of NCBF has been one of the most interesting and satisfying experiences of my life, and I have been incredibly blessed to have gotten to know everyone.

As I step down and look back, I see the teamwork and vision for NCBF reflected throughout the organization. Too many accomplishments to count, and all possible because you, our amazingly generous and steadfast donors. Above all, I can see so much potential having been built up, ready to fly to new heights, and I’m excited to see where that takes us. Thank you all so much for this opportunity of a lifetime. I will miss you all greatly.

In love and solidarity,

Becky Errera, retired

 

Trial for the Killing of Manuel Ellis Has Started

The trial for the killing of Tacoma resident Manuel “Manny” Ellis began earlier this month. Manny was killed at the hands of police on March 3, 2020, and his family and advocates have been pushing to hold the officers involved accountable ever since. On trial for felony charges are Tacoma Police Officers Matthew Collins, Christopher Burbank and Timothy Rankine.

The KNKX/Seattle Times award-winning podcast series The Walk Home is a well reported deep dive into what happened to Ellis the night of March 3, his life, family, the officers, and the broader context around the murder. Both news organizations are covering the trial in depth.

The trial is a big test for Initiative 940. The law, passed in 2018 by voters, is a package of law enforcement reforms that lowered the bar for holding police officers liable for using deadly force. It was amended that same year by the state legislature. The investigation into the murder of Manny was initially a showing of the failures of the implementation of I-940. Law enforcement agencies repeatedly withheld information on which agencies had officers present at the scene when Manny was killed, making the legally required independent investigation an impossibility. The investigation was passed from one agency to the next until the Washington State Patrol took over, even though the State Patrol had officers present at the scene. Pierce County Sheriff’s Department also had a number of failings, like not providing Manny’s family with a liaison or providing public updates about the investigation.

Ellis’ case has parallels to a recent case of police violence in our area, when Jaahnavi Kandula was killed by a police officer going 74 MPH in their car through downtown Seattle in January 2023. In both cases, law enforcement withheld crucial details about the facts of what actually happened, leaving it up to local news, family members, and advocates to fight to get details released. Video footage contradicts the stories of the officers involved. Officers at the scene misrepresented context and behavior to justify their actions.

The trial is expected to end in December, around the time that another Seattle area police officer will start their trial for the shooting death of Jesse Sare that took place in 2019. Unfortunately, trials such as these won’t change the foundation of the system of policing in our country. As Mariame Kobe wrote in 2014, “I just know that indictments won’t and can’t end oppressive policing which is rooted in anti-blackness, social control and containment.” Reform won’t come from prosecuting a few officers here and there. We need to see a shift towards less and less reliance on the police and alternative pathways to keeping our communities safe.

 

Help to Dispel Myths about Pretrial Detention

Thank you for being part of this community! We are fighting to end cash bail and pretrial detention and there is a growing momentum to make change. Illinois recently became the first state to end cash bail. This is a step forward but much work is still to be done.

There are organizations like the Prison Policy Initiative providing research and information to help propel the movement to abolish pretrial detention. They recently released information on the argument of “failure to appear” and why bail has been justified, but the reality is more harm is created. There is so much good information in this article getting to how the commercial bail bond industry is fighting bail reform and how “most people who miss court are facing low-level charges and are not evading court at all. In fact, roughly 25% of cases are eventually dismissed altogether, suggesting many of these people should never have been charged in the first place.”

A summary of the article: “If courts were truly interested in reducing absences, there are many ways they could intervene to reduce the barriers people face to attending court. Instead, jurisdictions have created laws that allow courts to ruin and incarcerate greater numbers of people before they’ve even been convicted of a crime simply for having a scheduling conflict.”

Another recent report from the Prison Policy Initiative to check out is New report Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023 shows that as the pandemic subsides, criminal legal system returning to “business as usual”. This report looks at how every day hundreds of thousands of people are locked up pretrial.

We hope you will share this information with your community so we can increase knowledge and dispel myths about pretrial detention and cash bail. Thank you for being part of this fight!

 

Further Learning

Interested in getting more involved? See our website for volunteering opportunities!

Without the generosity of our donors, our work would be impossible. Thank you so much for your continued support of the Northwest Community Bail Fund.