Are police departments in Tacoma, Pierce County as diverse as their communities?
In 2020, the largest police departments in Pierce County were markedly whiter than the communities their officers served, data shows. In the years since, those police forces have become a bit more diverse.
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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Indianapolis Star
an hour ago
- Indianapolis Star
City dismantled Black community for urban renewal. Decades later, it still hasn't happened
ELKHART, Ind. — The red brick pavers covered by overgrown weeds near South 6th Street and Dr. MLK Jr. Drive are some of the last remnants of a community that once thrived in this part of Elkhart. This area, called Benham West, was the civic, cultural and commercial hub for Black residents who settled south of the train tracks, the dividing line that separated them from the rest of the city even decades after desegregation. Residents called this area the "Village" because, literally and figuratively, this was their community at a time when many of the Northern Indiana city's predominantly White residents were hostile to the color of their skin. But the tight-knit community is long gone. The city incrementally and systematically bulldozed the neighborhood over more than two decades of aggressive urban renewal. The work uprooted families. Lifelong business owners lost their livelihoods. Homeowners were forced to move to other parts of the city where they were not welcome. Older residents found themselves starting anew, burdened with heftier mortgages they had little time left to pay off, said Steve Millsaps, who grew up in the neighborhood and whose relatives owned homes and businesses there. Officials spent millions of dollars in city and federal funds to buy and raze properties. When residents lost their homes and businesses, they also lost a level of self-sufficiency and assets they could've passed on to their descendants, said Nekeisha Alayna, an Elkhart resident who helped create a documentary about the neighborhood's history. After people dispersed, the neighborhood's community leaders also left, creating a "big vacuum," she said. After all of that, the promised urban revitalization never happened. Politics, the economy and, some argued, bigotry got in the way. "They just screwed us out of our land," Millsaps said. The historical dismantling of neighborhoods is not exclusive to Elkhart or any one city. Urban renewal projects cleared low and middle-income housing in cities nationwide, including Indianapolis, beginning in the 1950s, often targeting neighborhoods where Black residents built their own communities because discriminatory practices of the era kept them from buying or building homes elsewhere. In Elkhart, a manufacturing hub 160 miles north, Benham West became one of the city's most underdeveloped and impoverished neighborhoods after years of disinvestment. Some see the dismantling of Benham West as part of the city's ugly history with racism. The neighborhood and its surrounding areas were also plagued with troubling policing practices by a group of rogue officers known as the Wolverines, who systematically targeted Black citizens for harassment and false arrests. "Benham West and what occurred in Benham West was a failure on multiple levels," said Rod Roberson, who grew up near the neighborhood and was elected the city's first Black mayor in 2019. "But it also failed an entire city and community as well." Roberson said the city now has a long-term plan to revitalize Benham West and surrounding areas, launched a few years ago with the opening of a large community center just outside the neighborhood. But the 55-acre swatch of Benham West still remains a patchwork of empty and overgrown lots, dotted with vacant buildings, a smattering of businesses, a thrift store that also provides beds for the unhoused, a church and some housing. On 6th Street and Dr. MLK Jr. Drive — the old neighborhood's main thoroughfare where homes and businesses once stood — is an auto body shop. Across the street is a big empty lot that was recently remediated to get rid of contaminants. In its heyday, Benham West was a community of single-family homes with well-maintained yards on walkable streets where children played. Businesses, including restaurants, bars, barbershops and barbecue joints, were beloved because they were owned by families and friends. A neighborhood church and a community center — originally called the Colored Community Center and later renamed after Booker T. Washington — helped families raise children. On holidays, residents traded cakes and pies. That's how Jackie Small, who grew up in Benham West, remembers the neighborhood. "I tell my grandchildren," she said, "'I wish you could've lived in the era that I lived in.'" But the community also seemed excluded from the rest of the city. Roberson, whose family was among those that migrated from the South in the 1950s, recalled riding his bicycle out of Benham West and to a sporting goods store downtown when he was 10 years old. Once he passed the underpass beneath the train tracks, he knew he was not welcome. "There were a couple of teenagers who were a little bit older than I was and let me know that I wasn't in the right place," Roberson said. "And so you realize that you're outside of your community." By the 1960s, Benham West had become a priority for urban renewal. City officials sought federal financing and allotted local dollars to buy and demolish properties they believed were substandard. Residents initially resisted because they did not want to lose the bonds of their community and their only church. As the Black population was pushed out of Benham West, "one can easily observe 'for sale' signs on the lawns of white homeowners," according to a 1965 article that cited a report by the Elkhart Urban League. Jamie Pitts, a professor at the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary who studied the neighborhood's history, said fears that the redevelopment would entail moving Black residents into White neighborhoods prompted city officials to essentially push Benham West residents into another concentrated area even further south of the train tracks. Some did move north of the tracks — and some of them were met with trepidation and threats. Plez and Brenda Lovelady left Benham West in the 1970s and moved to a house a few miles north, where residents were predominantly White. One day, they found a cross burning in their yard. Many of the houses in Benham West had been razed by then. In their place was a public housing complex the city built a few years earlier for low-income residents. Crime, a problem that older residents said was not a huge problem before all the houses were torn down, plagued the "virtually deserted" area, according to a 1974 newspaper article. By the 1980s, the Washington Gardens public housing complex was one of the most heavily policed parts of the city. The Wolverines, former officers said, used it as their playground. A few businessowners stood firm against the city's urban renewal plans. They had sunk their life savings into their businesses and wanted to be paid a fair price. "You're talking about taking away a livelihood and a community," said Charles Walker, who grew up in Benham West. "And you can't repay that." One of those businessowners was Millsaps' uncle, Marion "Monk" Scott, who operated Monk's Bar on Benham West's main thoroughfare for decades. It was one of the last businesses the city bought because Scott refused to give it up. He rebuilt his business a few blocks south, Millsaps said. Another businessowner was Small's father, Henry Otterbridge, who owned Henry's Pool Hall where, as she put it, "everybody gathered, good or bad." In the late 1980s, when much of the old neighborhood had been demolished, the city sued Otterbridge to force him to sell his property. Otterbridge ultimately sold his business to the city, but he was required to split the money with the previous owner of of the property, which used to be a car service station before it became a pool hall, Small explained. Then, city officials later told her father he had to pay to remove gas tanks that had sat underground for years, she said. After everything, Otterbridge was left with only $35,000 to start anew. "That broke my dad," Small said. Otterbridge opened another business further south, Henry's Grocery Store, but business was slow and people kept owing him money, Small said. In the early 1990s, somebody ransacked the store and set it on fire. "After that," she said, "my dad just said, 'I tried to do what I could do, but I can't do it no more.'" The city did intend to redevelop Benham West. In fact, there were many proposals. A green space. A park. A playground. A mix of residential, industrial and commercial developments. Consultants were hired. Studies were conducted. Sketches were drawn. Thousands of dollars were spent. Promises were made. But Benham West residents felt left out of the decision-making process. In the 1980s, then-Elkhart Mayor Eleanor Kesim proposed a 23-acre park, citing the urgency to fulfill the decades-long promise. But some City Council members preferred selling chunks of Benham West to industrial developers and were concerned that building a park would indefinitely lock the city into paying for maintenance costs. A years-long impasse over whether a predominantly Black neighborhood deserved a park consumed much of Kesim's time as mayor. "My belief in our responsibility to develop Benham West after the drastic urban renewal of the 1970s dismantled whole neighborhoods has not diminished nor has my concern about the not so veiled bigotry of some citizens of this community," Kesim said in 1982, when she proposed a cheaper park the City Council rejected. "Such bigotry is childish, pathetic and indicative of minds crippled by hatred." That same year, the City Council approved a spending plan that did not include the park. Benham West residents showed up in protest. One was quoted in the paper saying, "You are against our black skins." More ideas, like building a mini-college campus, were thrown around. Kesim's successor, Mayor James Perron, reached out to a few schools, but no one committed. It also became apparent that few industrial or commercial developers wanted to build in the neighborhood. The lack of progress became a joke. The first sentence of a 1987 newspaper story read: "Being an Elkhart city official hoping for the redevelopment of the Benham West property is like being a Chicago Cubs fun. You're always waiting for next year." Perron did make some progress, but almost none of those redevelopments lasted. A museum that opened with much fanfare later moved to a different location. A Veterans of Foreign Wars post also opened, but it later shut down and became an Ivy Tech facility. That too later closed, and the building is now empty. Right next to it is a vacant site with a "For Sale" sign. "You get politicians paying lip-service to the idea of redevelopment every 5 to 10 years without much follow through," said Pitts, the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary professor. "Around 2000, a city redevelopment official was quoted in the paper saying, more or less, 'I guess it wasn't enough to just tear things down, there should have been a plan.'" The city's poor track record has led to deep skepticism for some that Elkhart will ever fulfill its promise of revitalizing the area. "One of the bigger problems we have in this city is we have meetings, and at the end of the meetings, you know what we have?" asked former Benham West resident Plez Lovelady. "Nothing but a bunch of dirty coffee cups." When he was elected mayor six years ago, Roberson found there were comprehensive development plans for several areas of Elkhart. But there still was none for Benham West. "The lack of being able to provide a comprehensive plan in order to grow that area and to do the right things in that area is political failure," he said. "It's also the failure of a community to be engaged in the process as well. It's important that I'm held accountable to do what I should be doing in those areas. But it's also important for us to be able to give the community something that it can rally around." The city now has a long-term redevelopment plan in which stakeholders have a say in what they want their neighborhood to become, Roberson said. It involves creating community assets, both in Benham West and in the surrounding neighborhood south of the tracks, that would help raise property values and draw developers to the area. One of those assets is a new 30,000-square-foot center named after two Black community leaders. The Tolson Center for Community Excellence is equipped with two gyms, a dance and exercise room, a computer and arcade room, an art center, a cafeteria with an industrial kitchen and other venues that host various programs for children. There's ongoing construction outside for a soccer field, playground, and basketball and pickleball courts. About a mile south is another recently opened center that helps adults earn a high school diploma and provides job training. Next door is the neighborhood's new and only health center. The two facilities are located in a large shopping mall the city hopes to turn into a commercial and residential area. Rebuilding the area will be a long, "tedious process," Roberson said. "But it's one with a plan," he said. "And it's one that we're going to continue to stay with as long as I'm here."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Donald Trump Jr weighs into LA crisis by suggesting protesters should be shot by ‘Rooftop Koreans'
Donald Trump Jr has attempted to make light of the ongoing tensions in Los Angeles by calling for the city to 'Make Rooftop Koreans Great Again!' Donald Trump's eldest son posted a meme on X of a Korean-American business owner inspecting a rifle on a rooftop in reference to the Los Angeles riots of 1992, which erupted in response to the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers caught on video beating Black motorist Rodney King. The angry scenes that ensued saw some members of the local Asian diaspora take up arms to defend their businesses from looters and vandals. The Korean-Americans who took action to safeguard their livelihoods were both applauded as symbols of self-reliance and condemned for risking exacerbating existing racial animosity in their neighborhoods. Don Jr's post comes after protesters again took to the streets of the California city over the weekend to rail against his father's crackdown on illegal immigration, scenes that began on Friday when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents met with opposition from the public as they attempted to arrest alleged undocumented migrants living locally. The mass resistance saw vehicles set alight as protesters threw fireworks towards armed law enforcement officers, held aloft placards bearing hostile slogans and shouted 'Shame on you!' Officers in riot gear responded by firing tear gas and flash grenades to attempt to disperse the crowds. ICE operations across Los Angeles County have so far resulted in the arrests of 118 accused illegal immigrants despite the clashes, according to the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump responded to the situation by federalizing the California National Guard on Saturday, a step that was immediately condemned as 'unlawful' by the state's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who said the move was unnecessary as there were enough LAPD officers on the streets to control the demonstrations. Newsom accused Trump of attempting to 'manufacture a crisis' to distract from his other domestic controversies and of violating California's state sovereignty. 'These are the acts of a dictator, not a president,' he added. Newsom has since sued the administration and challenged Trump's border czar Tom Homan to arrest him, writing on X on Sunday: 'Come and get me, tough guy. I don't give a damn. It won't stop me from standing up for California.' Trump hit back at him on Truth Social, declaring: 'Governor Gavin Newscum and 'Mayor' [Karen] Bass should apologize to the people of Los Angeles for the absolutely horrible job that they have done, and this now includes the ongoing L.A. riots. 'These are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists. Remember, NO MASKS!' More than 2,000 members of the state National Guard duly arrived in the city on Sunday to assist the LAPD in maintaining order. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has meanwhile threatened to send in the Marines if the chaos continues. At least 10 protesters were arrested on Sunday, following on from the 29 taken into custody on Saturday.
Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allow Black men into priesthood
Today is Monday, June 9, the 160th day of 2025. There are 205 days left in the year. Today in history: On June 9, 1978, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struck down a policy of excluding Black men from the Mormon priesthood that had been in place for more than 125 years. Also on this date: In 1732, James Oglethorpe received a charter from Britain's King George II to establish the colony of Georgia. In 1954, during the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings, Army special counsel Joseph N. Welch berated Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, asking: 'Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?' In 1972, heavy rains triggered record flooding in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The resulting disaster left at least 238 people dead and more than 1,300 homes destroyed. In 1973, Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, winning horse racing's Triple Crown and setting a still-standing record by running the 1 1/2-mile dirt course in 2 minutes, 24 seconds. In 1986, the Rogers Commission released its report on the Challenger disaster, criticizing NASA and rocket-builder Morton Thiokol for management problems leading to the explosion that claimed the lives of seven astronauts. In 2013, Rafael Nadal became the first man to win eight titles at the same Grand Slam tennis tournament after beating fellow Spaniard David Ferrer in the French Open final. (Nadal would finish his career with 14 French Open titles.) In 2022, at its first public hearing on the matter, the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol placed blame squarely on Donald Trump, saying the assault was not spontaneous but an 'attempted coup' and a direct result of the defeated president's effort to overturn the 2020 election. Today's Birthdays: Sportscaster Dick Vitale is 86. Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Parker is 74. Film composer James Newton Howard is 74. Author Patricia Cornwell is 69. Actor Michael J. Fox is 64. Writer-filmmaker Aaron Sorkin is 64. Actor Johnny Depp is 62. Actor Gloria Reuben is 61. Actor Michaela Conlin is 47. Actor Natalie Portman is 44. Musician Anoushka Shankar is 44. Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Laurie Hernandez is 25.
