Tacoma, WA

The Tacoma Police Department (TPD) has paid $12.3 million in documented police misconduct settlements from 2020 to 2024, with an additional $22 million jury verdict currently on appeal.

The largest settled case is the $8 million paid in 2020 to the family of Than Orn, a Cambodian-American man killed by TPD officers. The case generated significant community response and contributed to reform demands in Tacoma.

The most nationally prominent case is the death of Manuel Ellis, a 33-year-old Black man who died on March 3, 2020 after being restrained by TPD officers. Ellis said "I can't breathe" before losing consciousness. Three officers - Christopher Bain, Kristopher Clark, and Matthew Collins - were charged with murder and manslaughter in 2021. In 2024, a jury awarded $22 million to Ellis's family in a civil trial. The criminal charges against the officers were dismissed by the trial judge in 2022, a ruling that generated significant controversy; the dismissal was upheld on appeal in 2023.

The $22 million civil verdict is currently on appeal by the city. If upheld, it would represent the largest police misconduct settlement in Tacoma history and would push the city's total tracked exposure to $34.3 million.

For insurance underwriters, the Tacoma dataset illustrates the actuarial risk of pending appeal exposure: the $22 million verdict represents a known liability that has not yet been resolved, creating forward uncertainty that standard annual pricing models cannot adequately capture. The gap between the criminal acquittal and the civil verdict also demonstrates that criminal and civil liability standards operate independently.