Bodycam footage shows former Illinois police officer who killed Sonya Massey

Outrage and shock continue after Illinois State Police released bodycam video Monday showing then-Illinois Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson killing Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, in her Springfield, Illinois home.

Two Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputies, Grayson and another unnamed deputy, both white, responded to Massey’s report of a burglar at her home at 2800 Hoover Avenue early in the morning of July 6 at around 12:50 a.m. Shortly thereafter, the deputies reported shots fired at 1:21 a.m. Massey was taken to the emergency room at St. John’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

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The video is from the unnamed officer’s body camera, as Grayson reportedly didn’t activate his body camera until after he shot Massey. The gruesome video shows the events from the moment the officers arrived to when Massey was killed. The two officers spent the first nine minutes of the video searching outside Massey’s home for the reported intruder. After finding no one, they knocked on Massey’s door to inform her that they hadn’t found anyone. They then asked for her ID in order to file a report.

While they were looking for her identification, they entered her home. Massey, who had a pot of boiling water on the stove, went to pour it into her sink. The officers joked and backed away because the sink was close to them.

Massey noticed this and asked, “Where are you going?” An officer replied, “Away from your hot, steaming water,” and laughed again.

Massey believed Grayson was joking and joked back, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” She repeated the joke, as the officer did not seem to hear her. Grayson suddenly became extremely aggressive, pulled out his gun and threatened to shoot her “in the f*cking face.”

With both officers’ guns pointed at her, ready to kill, Massey immediately began to apologize, dropping to the ground in fear for her life with her hands up. The officer began to yell, “Drop the fucking pot,” and walked toward her. Grayson then fired three shots, one of which hit her in the face below the eye.

Five seconds elapsed between the time they drew their weapons and the time the first shot was fired, leaving Massey no time to comply with the order to throw a pot of boiling water on the ground.

In this image, taken from bodycam video released by the Illinois State Police on Monday, July 22, 2024, former deputy sheriff Sean Grayson (left) points his gun at Sonya Massey, who called 911 for help, before shooting her to death in her home in Springfield, Illinois, on July 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Illinois State Police)

Grayson then acted as if shooting Massey was business as usual, while she was still breathing and gasping for air. Grayson casually said, “Just let her (bleed out)” and “There’s nothing we can do.” Grayson repeatedly tried to convince the unnamed officer in the incident not to perform first aid.

Only after Massey bled to death on the ground for two minutes did the unnamed officer reluctantly administer first aid and attempt to stop the bleeding.

In Grayson’s bodycam footage, he attempts to justify the murder by falsely claiming she “came at me with boiling water” and noting that Massey “intentionally” called the police, implying it was part of her plan to throw boiling water on them.

After the video became public, there was a wave of condemnation and disgust with the police and the American justice system. The family of Sonya Massey, who spoke out about the bodycam footage, held a press conference calling for justice for Massey. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Massey’s family, called it “senseless on every level.”

Protests were held across Springfield and surrounding communities Monday afternoon, with more being called for just hours after the video was released. Many expressed their anger in social media comments after watching the videos and shared calls for justice.

A Sangamon County grand jury indicted Grayson for the fatal shooting on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated assault and official misconduct, two weeks after he shot and killed Massey. Grayson turned himself in shortly after the indictment and remains in Sangamon County Jail without bail as he awaits trial. He pleaded not guilty during his initial pretrial hearing on July 19.

The Democratic Party, as with previous high-profile police killings, has responded by promoting its agenda of “police reform” as a way to soothe public anger over police killings across the country and promote divisive identity politics by framing police brutality as a fundamentally racial problem.

Joe Biden said: “Sonya Massey, a beloved mother, friend, daughter, and young Black woman, should be alive today. Sonya called 911 because she was concerned about a potential intruder. When we call for help, all of us as Americans, no matter who we are or where we live, should be able to do so without fear for our lives. Sonya’s death at the hands of a responding officer is a reminder that Black Americans all too often face fear for their safety in ways that many of us do not.

“Sonya’s family deserves justice. I grieve for her children and her entire family as they deal with this unthinkable and senseless loss. Jill and I grieve with the rest of the country and our prayers are with Sonya’s family, loved ones and community at this devastating time.

“I commend the swift actions of the Springfield District Attorney’s Office. As we wait for the case to be prosecuted, let us pray to comfort those in mourning. Congress must pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act now. Our fundamental commitment to justice is at stake.”

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker was quoted in the Springfield Official Gazette Register such as saying that an overhaul of training may be needed, which would require even more funding for the police. “Look, if you talk to police officers and leaders in law enforcement, they’ll tell you that they think there should be more training, that we should put more resources into training, and that their officers should get more training. And I can’t agree more.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also released a statement, saying, “The images of Sonya Massey’s murder are horrific. The fact that yet another unarmed black woman has lost her life at the hands of law enforcement makes me angry and saddened…”

SEP 2024 presidential candidate Joe Kishore wrote on Twitter/X, laying out the core issues in the ongoing wave of police killings in the US: “Sonya Massey’s murder is the latest in an endless series of atrocities. More than 1,000 people of all races are killed by police every year. Police killings cannot be separated from the brutal wars abroad and the vast levels of social inequality.”

What Biden, Pritzker, and Johnson don’t and can’t talk about is that the Democratic Party as a whole has actively pursued the largest U.S. military spending ever and a substantial increase in domestic police repression. They focus on presenting police brutality as a racial problem, ignoring its impact on people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, while pushing for more funding for the police.

The brutalization of the working class by police is directly linked to capitalism. Protests and calls for police reform, now as in the past, have changed nothing. The election of Democrats or more African American mayors and police chiefs has not reversed this trend.

On July 10, Mapping Police Violence databases recorded 694 murders, 56 more than the total for the same period last year. At over 1,300 deaths, it is the highest number ever recorded.

In 2020, the world witnessed a wave of multiracial and multiethnic protests against police brutality following the release of video of George Floyd being murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and his partners. Millions of people, outraged and disgusted, took to the streets in every state in the US and cities internationally to protest.

Since then, millions of people worldwide have died from the COVID-19 pandemic to protect the interests of the financial aristocracy. NATO’s war against Russia has killed 100,000 people, and Israel, with the support of the Biden administration, is committing genocide in Gaza, killing an estimated 186,000 people so far.

The struggle against police violence, like all forms of capitalist brutality, must be waged on the basis of the working class struggle against capitalism and for socialism.