Early in the morning on July 6, Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old resident of Springfield, Illinois, called 911 to report a prowler at her home. Sangamon County Sheriff's Deputy Sean Grayson and another deputy responded around 1:50 a.m. Half an hour later, Grayson fatally shot Massey in the face. His justification for that use of deadly force was so implausible that last week he was fired and charged with first-degree murder.
Body camera video released on Monday illuminates the circumstances of the shooting, which President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris publicly condemned this week. After searching the property and finding no intruders, Grayson and his colleague repeatedly knock on Massey's door. It takes a while for her to respond, and she explains that she was getting dressed. Her demeanor is calm, but she is behaving oddly. "Please don't hurt me," she says after opening the door. She says she heard "somebody outside my house," adding, "Please God, please God" as she looks at her cellphone.
Grayson explains that he and the other deputy did not see any sign of a prowler. "Please God, please God," Massey says. "I'm trying to get help….Please God, please God. I don't know what to do….I heard somebody outside." Grayson reiterates that no one is there, and he seems on the verge of leaving, asking, "Is there anything else I can do for you?" Then he asks, "You doing all right mentally?" Massey, who according to The Independent "reportedly suffered from mental illness," says "yes" and mentions "my medicine."
Grayson asks Massey for her ID and follows her into her house as she goes to get it. The other deputy also enters the house and looks around, perhaps continuing to search for an intruder. Sitting on the couch in her living room, Massey grabs her purse, then gets distracted, saying, "I've got some paperwork." Grayson tries to get her to focus on retrieving her ID. "I just need your name," he says, "so we can get out of here….Just a driver's license will do, and I can get out of your hair."
Then things take a weird turn. Grayson points to a pot of boiling water on the stove in the kitchen adjoining the living room, saying, "We don't need a fire while we're here." Massey responds by walking into the kitchen and removing the pot from the stove. Massey, who is in the living room, on the other side of a kitchen counter, evidently backs up, because Massey says, "Where are you going?" Laughing, Grayson refers to "the hot, steaming water," and Massey jocularly observes that he wants to get "away from the hot, steaming water." After putting the pot down on a counter, Massey calmly but bizarrely says, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus," which she repeats after Grayson says, "What?"
At that point, Grayson's amusement instantly turns to alarm. "You better fucking not," he says, putting his hand on his gun. "I swear to God, I'll shoot you in the fucking face." Then he draws his gun and points it at Massey, who flinches and picks up the pot again. "OK, I'm sorry," she says before ducking behind the counter, still holding the pot. "Drop the fucking pot!" Grayson shouts. A few seconds later, Grayson fires three rounds, one of which strikes Massey in the head.
After the shooting, the other deputy says, "I'm going to go get my kit," meaning he intends to render medical aid. "Nah, it's a head shot, dude," Grayson replies. "She's done. You can go get it, but that's a head shot. Goddamn it. Fuck. I'm not taking fucking boiling water to the fucking head. It fucking came right to our feet too. Goddamn it….What else do we do? I'm not taking hot boiling water to the fucking face, and it already reached us."
As other officers arrive, Grayson tells one: "She had boiling water and came at me with boiling water….She said she was going to rebuke me in the name of Jesus and came at [me] with boiling water."
Grayson later reiterated to investigators that he was defending himself against the threat posed by the pot of hot water. But as First Assistant State's Attorney Mary Rodgers notes in a July 18 petition to deny Grayson pretrial release, "the pot was located in another room of the home, separated by a large counter," and Grayson was "still in the living room area." Yet "despite his distance and relative cover," Grayson "drew his 9mm firearm, not the less lethal TASER located on his duty vest, and threatened to shoot Ms. Massey in the face."
Massey "put her hands in the air and stated, 'I'm sorry,' while ducking for cover behind the counter that separated her" from the deputy, Rodgers says. Grayson, "with his firearm still drawn, proceeded to close the gap between him and Ms. Massey" and "aggressively yelled at Ms. Massey to put the pot down." He "then fired his duty weapon in the direction of Ms. Massey, striking her in the face one time."
A use-of-force expert that the Illinois State Police consulted during its investigation of the shooting, Rodgers notes, concluded that Grayson "was NOT justified in his use of deadly force." The expert "likened the scenario to an officer intentionally and unnecessarily putting himself in front of a moving vehicle and then justifying use of force because of fear of being struck."
Because Massey was black and Grayson is white, the incident has provoked commentary about racial bias in policing. "Sonya Massey, a beloved mother, friend, daughter, and young Black woman, should be alive today," Biden said on Monday. "Sonya called the police because she was concerned about a potential intruder. 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. Sonya's death at the hands of a responding officer reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not."
The next day, Harris, the presumptive 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, likewise implied that Grayson would have handled the situation differently if Massey had been white. "Sonya Massey deserved to be safe," Harris said in a written statement. "After she called the police for help, she was tragically killed in her own home at the hands of a responding officer sworn to protect and serve….Our thoughts are also with the communities across our nation whose calls for help are often met with suspicion, distrust, and even violence. The disturbing footage released yesterday confirms what we know from the lived experiences of so many—we have much work to do to ensure that our justice system fully lives up to its name."
Even without speculating about exactly why Grayson perceived Massey as posing a threat that justified a lethal response, anyone who watches the body camera video can see that his perception did not correspond with reality. To the extent that he faced any danger from the pot of water, it was not a deadly threat, and he could have neutralized it without firing his gun. Instead, as Rodgers observes, he magnified the threat by approaching Massey with his gun drawn when he could have remained at a safe distance.
Under Illinois law, "a person who kills an individual without lawful justification commits first degree murder" when "he or she either intends to kill or do great bodily harm to that individual," "knows that such acts will cause death to that individual," or "knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to that individual." If convicted, Grayson, who was also charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct, faces a sentence of 45 years to life.
Grayson's senseless escalation of his encounter with Massey raises the question of how someone with such poor judgment came to be employed by the Sangamon County Sheriff's Office, where he had worked for a bit more than a year. Grayson "worked at six different law enforcement agencies in the last four years," WGN9 reports. His employment record includes less than a year at the Auburn, Illinois, police department, a year at the Logan County Sheriff's Office, and brief stints at police departments in Virden, Kincaid, and Pawnee.
That employment history was not the only warning sign. "Grayson was arrested twice for Class A misdemeanor DUIs, once in 2015 and once in 2016," WGN reports. "There was all these red flags," said James Wilburn, Massey's father, "and yet they still made him a deputy in [Sangamon] County."
The case also underlines the value of body camera video. If Grayson's account of what happened had been accurate, the video would have confirmed it. But because the video contradicted his claim that Massey "came at me with boiling water," he can be held accountable for a gratuitous use of deadly force that might otherwise have been deemed justified.
Addendum: Self-defense lawyer Andrew Branca cites a few seconds of silent video from Grayson's body camera, which he activated immediately before shooting Massey. It shows her rising up, lifting the pot, and spilling the water, which lands on the floor between her and Grayson. But that happened after Grayson cornered her at gunpoint, threatening to shoot her in the face. His decision to approach her instead of keeping his distance and his decision to use his gun rather than his Taser still seem unjustifiable.
"Sonya Massey lost her life due to an unjustifiable and reckless decision by former Deputy Sean Grayson," Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell said on Monday. "Grayson had other options available that he should have used. His actions were inexcusable and do not reflect the values or training of our office."
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