Sonya Massay sought help, but instead police killed her
Sonya Massay sought help, but instead police killed her
Sonya Massay lived with her three children in Woodside Township, near Springfield, Ill.
She thought she heard someone attempting to break into her home.
She called the police.
As it turned out the cops were there not to serve and protect. They ended up killing her.
Sean Grayson was one of the cops who came to Massay’s house.
With little provocation, Grayson, a former deputy with Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department, shot Massay three times. One bullet entered her head.
He discouraged his partner from providing Massay who was lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor from giving aid. “She’s done,” Grayson was quoted as saying.
Grayson, 30, is charged with first-degree murder in Massey’s death, but it was an ordeal for Massey’s family to learn what happened. Grayson worked for five police departments before being bounced from one department to another. He was also wearing a police gang sign tattooed on his shoulder and arm.
Massey’s father, James Wilburn, said he was initially led to believe that a prowler killed his daughter or that a neighbor shot her.
The settlement will probably help avoid a lawsuit over the shooting which began in Massay’s home when Grayson believed Massay was about to throw boiling water on him.
The family of Sonya Massey and officials from Sangamon County, Illinois, reached a settlement stipulating the Illinois county agree to pay Massey’s family $10 million.
The settlement comes nearly a year after Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman and mother of two, was shot and killed by Grayson in her home, responding to a call for help.
Jack Campbell, a former Sangamon county sheriff, who hired Grayson, retired following the shooting.
The county was directed by the justice department
to ensure they have the tools to train their department in de-escalation techniques, non-discriminatory policing, and dealing with mental health disabilities. Massey was mentally ill.
Following the shooting, a citizen’s commission in Sangamon County called the “Massey Commission” was founded “to take action and make recommendations that expand safe and equitable access to services by addressing systemic racism and mistrust in law enforcement and other helping professions,” according to the commission’s website.
Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker condemned the killing, stating that he was “enraged that another innocent Black woman had her life taken from her at the hands of a police officer,” and that he was “grateful to the Springfield State’s Attorney’s office for bringing the appropriate charges in this case.”