Bodycam footage shows moment Illinois officer Sean Grayson fatally shot Sonya Massey in her home after she called them in fear of a home intruder.
Warning: Distressing content
Prosecutors on Monday released body-camera footage of an Illinois sheriff’s deputy shooting an unarmed black woman in her house this month after she called 911 to report a prowler. The videos were made public five days after the deputy was charged with first-degree murder.
The footage shows Sean Grayson and another Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy inspecting the property around Sonya Massey’s house early on July 6, followed by 18 minutes of a relatively normal interaction with her. Then, within 10 seconds, the call turned deadly when Grayson pulled his gun, ordered Massey to drop a pot of hot water and then fatally shot her in the face.
On Wednesday, Grayson was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct after a weeks-long investigation by the Illinois State Police and the Sangamon County State’s Attorney’s Office. At prosecutors’ urging, Circuit Judge Ryan Cadagin denied Grayson bond and ordered that he be jailed, and records show he’s at the Menard County Detention Facility.
Grayson, who was fired Thursday after his indictment, faces life in prison if convicted on the murder charge. His attorney, Dan Fultz, declined to comment on the case.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Massey’s family, called the shooting “heinous” and “senseless on every level” given that Grayson was a public guardian Massey had called upon to help her.
“She needed a helping hand. She did not need a bullet to the face,” Crump said on Monday at a news conference with Massey’s family.
The footage offered a more detailed look into the half-hour that turned a routine call into a deadly shooting that would lead to charging a law enforcement officer with murder.
Around 12.50am on July 6, Grayson and another deputy responded to Massey’s 911 call about a prowler near her house in Springfield, prosecutor Mary Rodgers wrote in a sworn affidavit. They arrived at her home and searched the area. Although they discovered what appeared to be a car that had been broken into, they did not find a prowler.
They then knocked on Massey’s door, spoke with her for a few minutes and went inside to make sure it was safe and to get more information, Rodgers said. As the two deputies walked toward the kitchen, Grayson noticed a pot on the stove and allowed Massey to remove it to prevent an accidental fire, she added. Massey turned off the stove, carried the pot to her sink and turned on the faucet, the video shows.
“Where are you going?” she asked the other deputy as he backed up further into her living room.
“Away from your hot, steaming water,” one of them said, according to the video.
Then, Massey said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
“Huh?” one of the deputies responded.
“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” she repeated.
Grayson warned her not to. “I swear to God I’ll shoot you right in your … face,” he said, using an expletive.
That’s when he drew his gun and pointed it at her, despite, as investigators would later note, having cover and being some distance away from her.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Massey said as she held up the pot in front of her and ducked behind the cabinets that separated them.
Grayson came toward Massey and “aggressively yelled” at her, Rodgers said.
Then, he allegedly fired three times at Massey, hitting her once in the face.
Only then did Grayson turn on his body camera, Rodgers said, in contrast with the actions of the other deputy, who turned on his camera upon arriving at Massey’s house.
Massey weighed 110 pounds and, according to prosecutors, wasn’t a physical threat to Grayson, who is 6-foot-3 and 228 pounds.
After the shooting, the other deputy told Grayson he was going to get a medical kit from his vehicle, Rodgers said. Grayson initially told him not to bother given the severity of Massey’s injury but then said he could get. The other deputy rendered aid and stayed with Massey until EMTs arrived, Rodgers said.
In the seconds after the shooting, Grayson defended firing at Massey, saying to the other deputy that the water had reached his feet. “What else do we do? I’m not taking hot boiling water to the … face,” he said, using an expletive.
Medics took Massey to HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, where she died.
That day, the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office asked the Illinois State Police to investigate the shooting.
A use-of-force expert with the Illinois State Police watched the body-camera footage of both deputies and determined that the shooting was not justified, Rodgers said. The expert compared the shooting “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,” she added.
Grayson’s “disregard of his training as a law enforcement officer, and his disregard for human life, shows by clear and convincing evidence that he is a danger to persons in the community”, Rodgers said.
On Monday, after the footage was released, President Biden said on social media that Massey should be alive and that her death “reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not”.
Biden said Massey’s death should spur Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which was introduced in March 2021, 10 months after its namesake, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. Negotiations to pass the legislation broke down soon after, and lawmakers never mustered enough support to get it to the President’s desk.
The legislation would increase the use of body cameras, restrict the use of qualified immunity, ban no-knock warrants and chokeholds in some cases, limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to police departments and create a national database for officer misconduct allegations.
Massey’s father, James Wilburn, said the same thing at Monday’s news conference, challenging House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to bring the legislation to the floor and make representatives vote on it.
“Every member of Congress needs to vote today,” he said, “so that nobody else in this United States of America has to go through what we’re going through.”