Sonya Massey’s Execution: Police Violence in the US Continues Unabated

Body camera footage released Monday shows the police execution of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, in her Springfield, Illinois, home in the early morning hours of July 6. The brutal killing has sparked widespread shock and anger, with renewed demands for an end to police terror in the United States.

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Massey had called police to report a suspected intruder outside her home, hoping they would show up to help her and secure the area. Instead, as the video shows, two officers entered her home and Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson murdered her in cold blood during a brief conversation.

Unarmed and calm during her interactions with the officers as she removed a pot of boiling water from her stove at their instruction, Massey joked, “I will punish you in the name of Jesus,” in response to what she thought was a joke from Grayson about the water supposedly being a threat. Instead, Grayson responded aggressively, stating that he would shoot Massey “in your f**kin’ face.”

Within seconds, as an apologetic Massey cowered behind her kitchen counter, the officer did just that, shooting the woman three times, once in the face. As she lay dying on the kitchen floor, Grayson instructed his partner not to administer first aid, as he had delivered a “headshot.” The still-unidentified officer eventually rendered aid, and Massey was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Massey’s former partner and father of one of her children says police initially told him a neighbor had killed her and that at the hospital they told nurses she had committed suicide. Police audio obtained by the Guardian confirms that someone believed to be one of the officers on the scene falsely told a dispatcher that Massey’s injuries were “self-inflicted.”

Grayson has been fired from the Sheriff’s Department and was indicted by a grand jury on July 17 on five criminal charges: three counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated assault with a firearm, and one count of official misconduct. He is currently being held without bail in the Sangamon County Jail pending trial. It is not yet known whether charges will be filed against his partner.

A move by prosecutors to charge a murderous police officer is exceedingly rare, with some 98 percent never facing criminal charges and many getting away with no hint of internal departmental discipline. There is extreme nervousness within the ruling class that, four years after the nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, and amid an intense political crisis, Massey’s killing could spark a renewed outburst of mass anger against police brutality and social inequality, less than four months before the November election.