‘We failed Sonya,’ Illinois sheriff says about fatal police shooting of Sonya Massey

CNN
 — 

Nearly two weeks after one of his former deputies was charged with murder in the death of a Black woman who’d called 911 for help, an Illinois sheriff on Monday publicly acknowledged his office failed the slain Springfield-area resident.

“(Sonya Massey) called for help and we failed,” Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell told a community meeting at a church in Springfield about the July 6 shooting.

“We did not do our jobs. We failed Sonya. We failed Sonya’s family and friends. We failed the community,” Campbell said.

Massey, 36, called 911 to report a possible “prowler” at her home near Springfield, according to a court document filed by prosecutors. After two deputies went to the home to investigate, one of them, then-deputy Sean Grayson, shot and killed her following a dispute involving a pot of hot water, authorities said.

Grayson, 30, was indicted by a grand jury July 17 on three counts of first-degree murder and one count each of aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. He has entered a not guilty plea and was denied pretrial release, according to court records.

A review of an Illinois State Police investigation into the shooting “does not support a finding that … Grayson was justified in his use of deadly force,” the state’s attorney for the county, John Milhiser, said in a July 17 news release.

At Monday night’s meeting, Campbell asked for the community’s forgiveness and expressed his willingness to enforce change within the sheriff’s office.

“I stand here today before you, with arms wide open, and I ask for your forgiveness. I ask Ms. Massey and her family for forgiveness. I offer up no excuses. What I do is offer our attempt to do better. To be better,” he said.

The sheriff’s office has commented on the incident previously, including on the day the office announced Grayson had been fired. The office said then that Grayson’s actions “do not reflect the values and training of the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office or law enforcement as a whole,” and it was “clear that the deputy did not act as trained or in accordance with our standards.”

Monday night’s meeting was facilitated by the US Justice Department’s community relations service, which is charged with responding to and preventing community tensions and hate crimes on the basis of race and sexual orientation, among other factors.

Last week the Justice Department said it was “assessing the circumstances” surrounding the fatal shooting.

“We are here to bring parties together to seek mutual understanding, to problem-solve in a way that empowers those local voices, those local ideas,” Justin Lock, the service’s chief, said during the session, in which members of the community were encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings surrounding Massey’s death.

Milhiser, the state’s attorney, also was among the speakers at the listening session.

“My No. 1 goal as state’s attorney is to keep our community safe, prioritize community public safety,” Milhiser said. “And we do that by prosecuting cases in Sangamon County without fear or favor and holding accountable those who break the law.”

Massey is one of a number of Black women who have been killed by police in their own homes in recent years, including Breonna Taylor and Atatiana Jefferson. In a news conference last week, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Massey’s family, connected her death to other cases of police violence against Black people across the US.

What body-camera footage shows

Video released last week by Illinois State Police includes body-camera footage from each of the two Sangamon County sheriff’s deputies who responded to Massey’s house after midnight on July 6.

In the footage, Grayson and another deputy speak calmly with Massey in her home when she goes to the stove to turn off a pot of boiling water. She then picks up the pot and the other deputy steps back, “away from your hot steaming water,” he says.

“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” she says in response.

“Huh?” the deputy says.

“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” she repeats.

“You better f**king not or I swear to God I’ll f**king shoot you in the f**king face,” Grayson says.

He then draws his firearm and points it at her, and she ducks and says, “I’m sorry” while lifting the pot, the video shows.

“Drop the f**king pot!” both deputies yell.

Three shots are heard. After a few seconds of silence, one deputy says “shots fired” and calls for emergency medical services.

“Dude, I’m not taking f**king boiling water to the f**king head. And look, it came right to our feet, too,” Grayson says.

Minutes after the shooting, Grayson speaks to another law enforcement figure. “She had boiling water and came at me with boiling water,” he says in the video. “She said she was going to rebuke me in the name of Jesus and came at (me) with boiling water.”

Massey’s autopsy report, which was released last week, said she was killed by a gunshot wound to her head.

Her family’s attorney emphasized the angle at which the deputy shot Massey.

Massey “was shot beneath her eye, and the bullet (exited) at the back of her neck, under her ear,” Crump told CNN. “What it tells us is that he shot her in a downward trajectory.”

When asked for comment Friday, Grayson’s attorney Daniel Fultz told CNN: “I don’t wish to comment.”

Grayson did not activate his body camera until after he fatally shot Massey, according to charging documents. The other deputy activated his body camera when he first arrived at the scene, the documents state.

According to footage from the other deputy’s body camera, the incident began with the deputies walking around Massey’s yard and finding a vehicle with broken windows. They then knock on the door and speak with her, and she struggles to understand and answer some questions about the vehicle and about herself.

As they speak in her living room, the deputies note the pot on the lit stove and one says, “we don’t need a fire while we’re here.” Massey gets up and turns off the stove and the shooting then follows.

Immediately after the shooting, the video records Grayson telling his partner Massey would not need medical help.

The other deputy says he’s going to get a medical kit to help, but Grayson responds, “Nah, she’s done. You can go get it but that’s a headshot.”

Grayson later goes to his vehicle to get his own medical supplies. When he gets back to the house, he asks if there’s anything he can do, but is told no.

“All right, I’m not even gonna waste my med stuff then,” Grayson says.

Next, Grayson leaves the house and speaks to a group of law enforcement officers outside. “Yeah I’m good, this f**king b*tch is crazy,” he says, according to the footage.

CNN’s Jennifer Feldman and Eric Levenson contributed to this report.