33rd Tacoma Homicide of 2021: Jordan Michael Patterson

On the evening of December 29, 2021, a man in a blue puffy jacket paid to gas up a black 2016 Ford F150 at the gas station off of South 84^th and Hosmer. The truck had been stolen ten days earlier. After gassing up the truck, the man in the blue puffy jacket got back into the truck with another man: 31-year-old Jordan Michael Patterson. Two hours after leaving the gas station these two are seen in this same truck in Fife when they’re involved in a shooting. After the shooting, they drove back to Tacoma but, the roads were icy. At some point, the man in the blue puffy jacket left the truck. He may have walked past the Shell Station at 801 Division Avenue and into Wright’s Park.  

On the last morning of 2021, Tacoma Police were called for what was thought to be a truck stuck on the icy hill near North D Street and Stadium Way. It was parked diagonally on the street. The rear window was shattered and the body Jordan Michael Patterson sat slumped inside the truck. The Medical Examiner would later determine that Jordan died from gunshot wounds. Jordan Michael Patterson is the thirty-third Tacoma homicide of 2021.

Now, almost a year and a half later the killing of Jordan Michael Patterson remains unsolved. Pierce County Crime Stoppers is offering $1,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction in this case. Tacoma Police have released this photo below of the man in the blue puffy jacket. He is pictured below. If you can identify this person, please contact Tacoma Police or Pierce County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS

I was unable to find much about Jordan online. He was originally from Ventura, California. At the time of his death he was a transient and had been known to have problems with drugs. It’s all too easy for some to focus on the worst aspects of a person and pretend as though these things make the individual less of a human being. But I know through hard experience that the world makes the person more than the person makes the world and every single one of us has made bad choices in our lives at some point. And as is all too often illustrated on this website, no matter what a homicide victim might be guilty of, they have friends and family who are innocent and will be impacted by Jordan’s murder. A murder never only harms one person.

In cases like this where I don’t know a lot of personal information about the victim, I rely on friends and family who want to share thoughts or memories of Jordan to give us a fuller picture of who he was.. This is what the comment section is for. All other comments will be deleted.

-          Jack Cameron