Body camera footage released Monday showed Sonia Massey crouching and apologizing to an Illinois sheriff’s deputy before the deputy shot the Black woman three times inside her home, including one fatal shot to the head.
An Illinois grand jury last week indicted former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Shawn Grayson, 30, who is white. Grayson has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, aggravated assault with a firearm and official misconduct.
The video confirms what prosecutors have previously said about the tense moments when Grayson yelled across the counter at Massey to put down a pot of hot water. Grayson then threatened to shoot Massey, and when Massey ducked and momentarily stood up, Grayson fired his handgun at her.
Authorities said Massey, 36, had previously called 911 to report a person he suspected of wandering.
The video shows two police officers responding to her home in Springfield, 200 miles southwest of Chicago, just before 1 a.m. on July 6. They first walked around the house and found a black SUV with broken windows in the driveway.
It took three minutes for Massey to open the door after officers knocked, and she immediately said, “Don’t hurt me.”
While speaking with her on the front porch, she seemed confused, repeatedly said she needed help, talked about God and said she didn’t know who the owner of the car was.
Inside the home, officers appeared frustrated as she sat on a couch and they asked for identification and searched her purse to complete a report before leaving.
Grayson then pointed to a pot sitting over the flames on the stove.
“We don’t need any fires while we’re here,” he said.
Massey quickly got up and went to the stove and moved the pot closer to the sink.
She and Grayson appear to be laughing over her pot of “steaming hot water” when suddenly she says, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
“You better not do that (expletive) or I swear (expletive) I’ll (expletive) shoot you (expletive) in the (expletive) face.” He then pulled out a 9mm handgun and demanded that she drop the pot.
Massey said, “Okay, I’m sorry.” Grayson’s body camera footage shows him pointing the weapon at her. She ducked and put her hands up.
Grayson was still in the living room, facing Massey, separated from him by a counter that separated the living room from the kitchen — a separation that, prosecutors say, gave Grayson “distance and relative hiding place” from Massey and the kettle of hot water.
After Grayson shoots her, Grayson stops his partner from grabbing a medical kit to save her.
“You can go get it, but it’s a headshot,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
He added: “What else can I do? I don’t want to have hot (expletive) water thrown in my (expletive) face.”
When the deputy noticed Massey was still breathing, he relented, saying he would bring a kit, and the other deputy said, “We can at least stop the bleeding.”
Grayson told police who arrived on the scene, “She attacked me with boiling water. She said she would rebuke me in the name of Jesus and then she attacked me with the boiling water.”
At a press conference Monday afternoon, the family’s attorney, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, called Grayson’s “revisionist” defense “disingenuous.”
“She needed help. She didn’t need to have a bullet shot in her face,” Crump said of Massey.
When asked why Massey told Grayson, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” Crump said she was being treated for mental illness. Crump noted she had invoked God’s name from the beginning of the incident and asked for a Bible after the officers went inside.
At Massie’s funeral on Friday, Crump said the video he and his family have already seen will “shock the conscience of America.”
Massey’s father, James Wilburn, called for the county court system to make the investigation and prosecution fully public and transparent with the public.
“The only time I’ll ever see my child again is when I’m gone,” Wilburn said, “and I don’t want anyone else in the United States to be in this league.”
Grayson, who was fired last week, is being held without bail in the Sangamon County Jail. If convicted, he faces 45 years to life in prison for the murder charge, six to 30 years for the assault charge and two to five years for the misconduct charge.
His lawyer, Daniel Fultz, declined to comment Monday.
President Joe Biden said in a statement that he and first lady Jill Biden were praying for Massey’s family “as they face this unthinkable and senseless loss.”
“When we need help, we as Americans, no matter who we are or where we live, should be able to ask for help without fearing for our lives,” Biden said.
“Sonia’s death at the hands of responding police officers is a reminder that black Americans too often face fears for their safety in ways that most of us do not.”
Massie’s death is the latest in recent years to see Black people killed by police in their own homes.
In May, a Hispanic Florida sheriff’s deputy opened the door to Roger Fortson’s Fort Walton Beach home, pointed a gun at him and shot him to death. The deputy, Eddie Duran, was fired.
In 2019, a white Fort Worth, Texas, police officer shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson through a back window of her home after responding to a non-emergency call about Jefferson’s front door being open.
Former officer Aaron Dean was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison.
In 2018, a white Dallas police officer shot and killed an unarmed Botham Jean after mistaking his apartment for his own. Former officer Amber Guyger was convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Crump has represented families in each case as part of his efforts to hold police accountable for killings of black people.
Crump also represents the family of Earl Moore, a Springfield man who died after being placed face-down on a gurney in December 2022. Two emergency medical workers have been charged with murder in that case.
