It was just after midnight when Sonya Massey called 911 for help with what she feared was a “prowler” outside her home.
Within an hour of making the call, the black mother of two, 36, was shot dead in her kitchen by a white deputy called to the scene to investigate.
Sean Grayson, 30, was dismissed by the Sangamon County sheriff’s department and charged over Massey’s death nearly two weeks after the shooting at her home in Springfield, Illinois, on July 6. Grayson has pleaded not guilty and claimed he shot Massey because he feared that she would throw some hot water at him.
Body-camera footage of the shooting provoked nationwide uproar as Massey’s family claimed they were “misled” in the immediate aftermath. They say they only learnt that a police officer had killed her after it was reported in the media. Before that, they say, there were suggestions that she had been killed by a neighbour or intruder, or had taken her own life. They claim there was a complete cover up.
Massey suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, and her behaviour in the body-camera footage suggested she was in the middle of an episode at the time of her death, the family say. “She needed a helping hand, not a bullet in the face,” Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing the family, said. “This was so senseless, so unnecessary.”
The Department of Justice has opened an independent investigation. Rallies demanding justice for Massey have been held in cities around the country as Grayson’s record and the Sangamon sheriff’s office face growing scrutiny.
Of course Illinois’ top police advocacy organisation, meanwhile, has demanded that Grayson’s badge be reinstated.
