Are police departments in Tacoma, Pierce County as diverse as their communities?
But progress is slow.
Police departments in Tacoma, Lakewood, Puyallup, Ruston and the Sheriff's Office each added more nonwhite officers in the five years since the start of 2020, according to public records released to The News Tribune, and they reduced their proportions of white officers. But the police departments in the county that The News Tribune reviewed data for remained, on average, 81 percent white in 2024.
Looking at how the diversity of police departments stacked up against their communities at the start of the decade, rather than in a more recent year, provides an accurate comparison. It's the last year the Census was conducted, which according to the U.S. Census Bureau, counts every living person in the country and its territories. The American Community Survey, which provides yearly estimates about the population, is a sample survey, and it can be less accurate for small areas such as the City of Ruston.
Pierce County has 19 law enforcement agencies, and The News Tribune requested racial demographic data from the largest of them along with a few smaller departments. Nine of those police departments shared data with The News Tribune or released it through public records requests.
According to experts who study criminal justice, having a law enforcement agency that looks more like the people it polices can be beneficial to changing a department's culture or improving residents' interactions with police.
Some of the county's most diverse cities, Lakewood and Tacoma, had the biggest racial disparities in 2020. That year the Lakewood Police Department, the third largest law enforcement agency in the county, was 26 percent whiter than the city's population.
Smaller, more rural police departments did not have as large of gaps between the share of white police officers and white residents — helped along by lower racial diversity in their populations — but they also were not as diverse as larger, urban departments.
The Orting Police Department, for example, became all white in the last five years. It lost its only Hispanic or Latino officer by 2023 in a city that was nine percent Hispanic or Latino in 2020.
The outlier was Gig Harbor, which had a greater proportion of police officers who are Black or African American and Hispanic or Latino in 2024 compared to the city's 2020 population. The police department was also less white compared to the community.
The Gig Harbor Police Department did not provide data for 2020 to 2023. Police Chief Kelly Busey said they had 'very little' turnover and that their numbers were fairly consistent with the past five years.
While about half of the police agencies The News Tribune received data from had some diversity gains, few managed to increase their department's number of officers who identified as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino — only Tacoma and the Pierce County Sheriff's Office did so.
Among larger departments, the Sheriff's Office was closest to having a percentage of Black law enforcement officers in 2020 that lined up with the county's racial demographics. The Sheriff's Office under-represented Black officers by about 1 percent.
The Sheriff's Office caught up in the following years, according to demographic data from the state's Office of Financial Management. It was 7.3 percent white in 2024, slightly over-representing Black officers compared to the 2024 population.
Most commonly, diversity gains in large departments were driven by growing numbers of Asian officers and a small decrease in numbers of white officers.
Martina Morris is a member of the Washington Coalition for Police Accountability and a former statistics professor at the University of Washington who helped review the police department data and Census data for this story. She told The News Tribune she thinks building more diverse police departments helps establish trust in the community and can help reduce the kind of escalation that can lead to unnecessary deaths.
'Part of it is the cultural awareness, and so you know how to interpret behaviors, words, actions that come from communities that might be more similar to you,' Morris said. 'And you know how to respond in a way that is understandable as well.'
As one example of white police officers unnecessarily escalating an incident with a person of color, Morris pointed to the 2013 death of Leonard Thomas, an unarmed Black man killed by a Pierce County Metro SWAT sniper with the Lakewood Police Department.
When U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein upheld a $15.1 million jury verdict against the city of Lakewood, then-Police Chief Mike Zaro and two other officers in 2018, she said the defendants escalated the probability that someone would die 'at every step.'
A more diverse police force isn't a panacea to racial disparities in policing. Morris said changes in training and policy are needed to reduce fatalities.
Several police departments said they have made intentional efforts to hire more racially diverse officers. The Tacoma Police Department said it has used targeted recruitment strategies, including going to job fairs such as the Historically Black Colleges and Universities' Legacy Bowl Career Fair as well as recruiting at community events such as Tacoma's Lunar New Year Festival and at Juneteenth celebrations.
Tacoma police also posted job openings and recruiting material on various online platforms and partnered with a marketing firm to launch reflectandprotect.org, a recruiting website with the tagline, 'Reflect Tacoma | Protect Tacoma.'
'While we know that change doesn't happen overnight, we're encouraged by the progress we've made and remain committed to building a department that reflects the diversity of Tacoma's residents — across race, gender, and background,' the Tacoma Police Department's recruiting division said in a written statement.
Gig Harbor police have similarly updated recruiting materials to reflect the diversity of its department. Shannon Costanti, the agency's Human Resources manager, said doing so is meant to attract and engage candidates to 'tell the story' about its diverse workforce. She said the efforts are 'impossible' to measure in relation to hiring outcomes, but HR would like to believe it's a small part of making a difference over time.
'I am pleased to have such a diverse force working for our community,' Busey said.
The Sheriff's Office said it too had made a concerted effort to hire and recruit more officers of color. Carly Cappetto, a spokesperson for the agency, said the Sheriff's Office also focused the videos it posts on social media to be 'inclusive and representative of all demographics.'
Before Cappetto was the Sheriff's Office's public information officer, the position was held by Lt. Darren Moss Jr. for several years, a familiar face to anyone who followed the law enforcement agency on social media or watched TV news reports about the office.
'Darren drew a large amount of attention to people of color for our office and represented excellence in his work as a person of color,' Cappetto said.
Tacoma
Tacoma Police Department, 2024 (did not provide number of officers)
White: 74.27%
Black or African American: 6.43%
Hispanic or Latino: 9.06%
Asian: 4.39%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.58%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 2.34%
Two or more races: 2.92%
Tacoma population 2020
White: 53.6%
Black or African American: 9.8%
Hispanic or Latino: 14%
Asian: 8.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 1.2%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 2.7%
Two or more races: 9.4%
Some other race: 0.6%
Pierce County
Sheriff's Office, 2024 (315 officers)
White: 73.02%
Black or African American: 7.3%
Hispanic or Latino: 7.94%
Asian: 6.98%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.32%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0%
Two or more races: 2.22%
Decline/unknown: 2.22%
Pierce County population 2020
White: 61.9%
Black or African American: 6.8%
Hispanic or Latino: 12.1%
Asian: 6.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 1%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 2%
Two or more races: 8.8%
Some other race: 0.6%
Lakewood
Lakewood Police Department, 2024 (98 officers)
White: 69.39%
Black or African American: 4.08%
Hispanic or Latino: 6.12%
Asian: 8.16%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 1.02%
Two or more races: 11.22%
Lakewood population 2020
White: 45.6%
Black or African American: 12.5%
Hispanic or Latino: 18.1%
Asian: 8.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.9%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 3.8%
Two or more races: 9.5%
Some other race: 0.7%
Puyallup
Puyallup Police Department, 2024 (67 officers)
White: 85.07%
Black or African American: 2.99%
Hispanic or Latino: 1.49%
Asian: 8.96%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0%
Two or more races: 0%
Decline/unknown: 1.49%
Puyallup population 2020
White: 70%
Black or African American: 3.8%
Hispanic or Latino: 9.8%
Asian: 5.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 1.1%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 1.3%
Two or more races: 7.8%
Some other race: 0.6%
Sumner
Sumner Police Department, 2024 (24 officers)
White: 87.5%
Black or African American: 4.17%
Hispanic or Latino: 4.17%
Asian: 0%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0%
Two or more races: 4.17%
Sumner population 2020
White: 71.4%
Black or African American: 1.6%
Hispanic or Latino: 13.8%
Asian: 3%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.8%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 1.1%
Two or more races: 7.7%
Some other race: 0.5%
Gig Harbor
Gig Harbor Police Department, 2024 (23 officers)
White: 69.57%
Black or African American: 4.35%
Hispanic or Latino: 13.04%
Asian: 4.35%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0%
Two or more races: 8.7%
Gig Harbor population 2020
White: 79.1%
Black or African American: 1.4%
Hispanic or Latino: 7.4%
Asian: 4.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.3%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0.3%
Two or more races: 6.4%
Some other race: 0.3%
Buckley
Buckley Police Department, 2024 (12 officers)
White: 100%
Black or African American: 0%
Hispanic or Latino: 0%
Asian: 0%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0%
Two or more races: 0%
Buckley population 2020
White: 84%
Black or African American: 0.7%
Hispanic or Latino: 5.7%
Asian: 1.2%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 1.3%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0.3%
Two or more races: 6.2%
Some other race: 0.5%
Orting
Orting Police Department, 2024 (11 officers)
White: 100%
Black or African American: 0%
Hispanic or Latino: 0%
Asian: 0%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0%
Two or more races: 0%
Orting population 2020
White: 76%
Black or African American: 2.4%
Hispanic or Latino: 8.7%
Asian: 2.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.9%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 1%
Two or more races: 8.1%
Some other race: 0.6%
Ruston
Ruston Police Department, 2024 (11 officers)
White: 72.73%
Black or African American: 0%
Hispanic or Latino: 0%
Asian: 27.27%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0%
Two or more races: 0%
Ruston population 2020
White: 76.8%
Black or African American: 1.4%
Hispanic or Latino: 6.5%
Asian: 6.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native: 0.5%
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 0.2%
Two or more races: 7.6%
Some other race: 0.5%
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