Sonya Massey called the police just before 1a.m. on July 6, concerned that someone was prowling around her Springfield-area residence.
“Don’t hurt me,” Massey told the two responding Sangamon County sheriff’s deputies as she let them into her home.
“Why would we hurt you?” Deputy Sean Grayson responded. “You called us.”
But moments later, Grayson, who is white, would indeed hurt Massey, a Black woman. He fatally shot Massey in the face after she attempted to remove a boiling pot of water from the stove.
The horrific scene, recorded on the second deputy’s body camera, showed Grayson shot Massey even though she had put the pot down and was holding up her hands in surrender.
Her last words before Grayson pulled the trigger: “Ok! I’m sorry.”
Grayson was fired and now sits in Sangamon County Jail, charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.
But two major truths have emerged from this maddening and senseless killing that has set off waves across Illinois and the nation:
Sonya Massey should still be alive, and Sean Grayson may well have had no business being a Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy.
Department of Justice gets involved
There are so many troubling questions surrounding Massey’s killing. It’s a relief that the U.S. Department of Justice says it is looking into the matter.
For instance, sheriff’s deputies may well have intentionally tried to muddy the circumstances of Massey’s death, claiming at one point —outrageously, in our view — that the 36-year-old woman shot herself.
“We don’t actually know what happened; he just screamed shots fired,” a county dispatcher told Illinois State Police communications, according to Champaign TV station WCIA. “Somebody heard — one of the dispatchers heard the gunshots and said female shot in the head, but we don’t know if she shot herself or if a deputy shot her.”
After a pause, the dispatcher said, “They’re now saying self-inflicted.”
Was there an attempt to cover-up? What kind of protocols or standard operating procedures for reporting officer-involved shootings are taught by Sangamon County law enforcement? A DOJ probe could uncover the truth.
“It is clear that the deputy did not act as trained or in accordance with our standards,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement on social media. The office said it is “committed to justice and accountability” in the case. The one thing that seems to have gone right in this terrible tragedy is the immediate action by the sheriff’s office to fire Grayson.
A ‘wandering cop’?
According to state records, Grayson was a part-time officer for the Pawnee Police Department from August 2020 to July 2021— listing his reasons for departure as “other.”
While at Pawnee, Grayson was also a part-time officer 12 miles away in Kincaid from February to May of 2021. Kincaid police told ABC News Grayson was terminated for refusing to live within 10 miles of the village.
Grayson worked part-time for the Virden Police Department from May to December 2021, and was a full-time officer at the Auburn Police Department from July 2021 to May 2022.
He resigned from both departments, then turned up 60 miles north, working as a full-time Logan County deputy sheriff from May 2022 to April 2023.
Grayson left that job to join the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in May 2023. He had also been convicted of DUI in 2015 and 2016, and had been discharged from the Fort Riley, Kansas Army installation in 2016 for “misconduct — serious offense.”
We don’t know the details of Grayson’s work record. But the fact that he had already worked for five Illinois law enforcement agencies in just four years seems like a huge red flag to draw notice when Grayson applied in Sangamon County, his sixth.
The ability of police — particularly those accused of misconduct — to cycle through various law enforcement agencies is so prevalent, there is a term for it: Wandering Cops.
The Manhattan Institute finds the phenomenon troubling enough to suggest better ways to document and decertify officers who have engaged in misconduct so that they can’t bounce from department to department.
From zero to ballistic
This editorial page is not alone in making the repeated point that, in addition to better hiring and screening practices, police departments across the country need better training in deescalating tense situations. Without it, normal confrontations or misunderstandings too often turn violent , or even fatal.
Better training would have made a difference for Massey. The bodycam video shows Grayson went from zero to ballistic within an instant, then fired his gun. Grayson had not activated his body camera; luckily, his partner did, giving Massey’s family the truth and a chance at justice.
“When we call for help, all of us as Americans — regardless of who we are or where we live — should be able to do so without fearing for our lives, President Joe Biden said in a statement this week.
Meanwhile, Massey’s family and the public must be told the whole truth about the incident.
They deserve assurances that bad actors will face consequences, and that safeguards will be put in place to make sure something this awful doesn’t happen to another Sangamon County family.
Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.
Get Opinions content delivered to your inbox. More about the Sun-Times Editorial Board.