Early within the morning on July 6, Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old resident of Springfield, Illinois, known as 911 to report a prowler at her house. Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson and one other deputy responded round 1:50 a.m. Half an hour later, Grayson fatally shot Massey within the face. His justification for that use of lethal power was so implausible that final week he was fired and charged with first-degree homicide.
Body camera video launched on Monday illuminates the circumstances of the taking pictures, which President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris publicly condemned this week. After looking the property and discovering no intruders, Grayson and his colleague repeatedly knock on Massey’s door. It takes some time for her to reply, and she or he explains that she was getting dressed. Her demeanor is calm, however she is behaving oddly. “Please do not harm me,” she says after opening the door. She says she heard “any individual exterior my home,” including, “Please God, please God” as she appears at her cellphone.
Grayson explains that he and the opposite deputy didn’t see any signal of a prowler. “Please God, please God,” Massey says. “I am attempting to get assist….Please God, please God. I do not know what to do….I heard any individual exterior.” Grayson reiterates that nobody is there, and he appears on the verge of leaving, asking, “Is there anything I can do for you?” Then he asks, “You doing all proper mentally?” Massey, who in accordance with The Independent “reportedly suffered from psychological sickness,” says “sure” and mentions “my drugs.”
Grayson asks Massey for her ID and follows her into her home as she goes to get it. The opposite deputy additionally enters the home and appears round, maybe persevering with to seek for an intruder. Sitting on the sofa in her front room, Massey grabs her purse, then will get distracted, saying, “I’ve received some paperwork.” Grayson tries to get her to give attention to retrieving her ID. “I simply want your identify,” he says, “so we are able to get out of right here….Only a driver’s license will do, and I can get out of your hair.”
Then issues take a bizarre flip. Grayson factors to a pot of boiling water on the range within the kitchen adjoining the lounge, saying, “We do not want a hearth whereas we’re right here.” Massey responds by strolling into the kitchen and eradicating the pot from the range. Massey, who’s in the lounge, on the opposite aspect of a kitchen counter, evidently backs up, as a result of Massey says, “The place are you going?” Laughing, Grayson refers to “the recent, steaming water,” and Massey jocularly observes that he desires to get “away from the recent, steaming water.” After placing the pot down on a counter, Massey calmly however bizarrely says, “I rebuke you within the identify of Jesus,” which she repeats after Grayson says, “What?”
At that time, Grayson’s amusement immediately turns to alarm. “You higher fucking not,” he says, placing his hand on his gun. “I swear to God, I will shoot you within the fucking face.” Then he attracts his gun and factors it at Massey, who flinches and picks up the pot once more, holding it in entrance of her head, apparently as a protect. “OK, I am sorry,” she says earlier than ducking behind the counter, nonetheless holding the pot. “Drop the fucking pot!” Grayson shouts. A number of seconds later, Grayson fires three rounds, one in all which strikes Massey within the head.
After the taking pictures, the opposite deputy says, “I’ll go get my equipment,” which means he intends to render medical support. “Nah, it is a head shot, dude,” Grayson replies. “She’s performed. You possibly can go get it, however that is a head shot. Goddamn it. Fuck. I am not taking fucking boiling water to the fucking head. It fucking got here proper to our toes too. Goddamn it….What else can we do? I am not taking sizzling boiling water to the fucking face, and it already reached us.”
As different officers arrive, Grayson tells one: “She had boiling water and got here at me with boiling water….She stated she was going to rebuke me within the identify of Jesus and got here at [me] with boiling water.”
Grayson later reiterated to investigators that he was defending himself in opposition to the risk posed by the pot of sizzling water. However as First Assistant State’s Lawyer Mary Rodgers notes in a July 18 petition to disclaim Grayson pretrial launch, “the pot was positioned in one other room of the house, separated by a big counter,” and Grayson was “nonetheless in the lounge space.” But “regardless of his distance and relative cowl,” Grayson “drew his 9mm firearm, not the much less deadly TASER positioned on his obligation vest, and threatened to shoot Ms. Massey within the face.”
Massey “put her arms within the air and acknowledged, ‘I am sorry,’ whereas ducking for canopy behind the counter that separated her” from the deputy, Rodgers says. Massey, “along with his firearm nonetheless drawn, proceeded to shut the hole between him and Ms. Massey” and “aggressively yelled at Ms. Massey to place the pot down.” He “then fired his obligation weapon within the path of Ms. Massey, putting her within the face one time.”
A use-of-force professional that the Illinois State Police consulted throughout its investigation of the taking pictures, Rodgers notes, concluded that Grayson “was NOT justified in his use of lethal power.” The professional “likened the state of affairs to an officer deliberately and unnecessarily placing himself in entrance of a transferring automobile after which justifying use of power due to worry of being struck.”
As a result of Massey was black and Grayson is white, the incident has provoked commentary about racial bias in policing. “Sonya Massey, a beloved mom, good friend, daughter, and younger Black girl, ought to be alive in the present day,” Biden said on Monday. “Sonya known as the police as a result of she was involved a couple of potential intruder. Once we name for assist, all of us as Individuals—no matter who we’re or the place we dwell—ought to give you the chance to take action with out fearing for our lives. Sonya’s dying by the hands of a responding officer reminds us that each one too typically Black Individuals face fears for his or her security in methods lots of the remainder of us don’t.”
The subsequent day, Harris, the presumptive 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, likewise implied that Grayson would have dealt with the scenario otherwise if Massey had been white. “Sonya Massey deserved to be secure,” Harris said in a written assertion. “After she known as the police for assist, she was tragically killed in her own residence by the hands of a responding officer sworn to guard and serve….Our ideas are additionally with the communities throughout our nation whose requires assist are sometimes met with suspicion, mistrust, and even violence. The disturbing footage launched yesterday confirms what we all know from the lived experiences of so many—we have now a lot work to do to make sure that our justice system absolutely lives as much as its identify.”
Even with out speculating about precisely why Grayson perceived Massey as posing a risk that justified a deadly response, anybody who watches the physique digicam video can see that his notion didn’t correspond with actuality. To the extent that he confronted any hazard from the pot of water, it was not a lethal risk, and he might have neutralized it with out firing his gun. As a substitute, as Rodgers observes, he magnified the risk by approaching Massey along with his gun drawn when he might have remained at a secure distance.
Beneath Illinois law, “an individual who kills a person with out lawful justification commits first diploma homicide” when “she or he both intends to kill or do nice bodily hurt to that particular person,” “is aware of that such acts will trigger dying to that particular person,” or “is aware of that such acts create a powerful likelihood of dying or nice bodily hurt to that particular person.” If convicted, Grayson, who was additionally charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct, faces a sentence of 45 years to life.
Grayson’s mindless violence raises the query of how somebody with such poor judgment got here to be employed by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Workplace, the place he had labored for a bit greater than a 12 months. Grayson “labored at six totally different regulation enforcement businesses within the final 4 years,” WGN9 reports. His employment document consists of lower than a 12 months on the Auburn, Illinois, police division, a 12 months on the Logan County Sheriff’s Workplace, and transient stints at police departments in Virden, Kincaid, and Pawnee.
That employment historical past was not the one warning signal. “Grayson was arrested twice for Class A misdemeanor DUIs, as soon as in 2015 and as soon as in 2016,” WGN reviews. “There was all these pink flags,” stated James Wilburn, Massey’s father, “and but they nonetheless made him a deputy in [Sangamon] County.”
The case additionally underlines the worth of physique digicam video. If Grayson’s account of what occurred had been correct, the video would have confirmed it. However as a result of the video clearly contradicted his declare that Massey “got here at me with boiling water,” he will be held accountable for a gratuitous use of lethal power which may in any other case have been deemed justified.
