Welcome to America, where police are killing Black women in their own homes

By James J. Devine

Sangamon County Sheriff Deputy Sean Grayson was fired after killing Sonya Massey, an unarmed woman, in her home located in Woodside Township near Springfield, Illinois following her call for assistance.

Massey, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, called 911, fearing a prowler outside her home. When deputies arrived, they found her calm, and she assured them that she had taken her medication.

The situation escalated quickly when former Sheriff’s Deputy Sean P. Grayson, who did not initially have his body camera on, ordered Massey to remove a pot from her stove. When she complied and picked up the pot, Grayson, who later said he feared for his safety, reacted with lethal force, shooting Sonya three times.

A video from his partner’s body camera showed that Grayson acted precipitously, recklessly and without justification. He told her to pick up the pot of boiling water, reacted strangely when she did so, and killed her when she told him he was being silly for suspecting that she meant harm.

“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!” is an expression many Christians use but when he heard the religious admonition, Grayson drew his pistol and barked commands to “drop the (expletive) pot.”

With a firearm pointed at her, Massey ducked behind the counter, rose up and appeared to grab the pan again before diving for cover. Grayson said he stepped toward and around the counter to keep Massey in sight, wary that she might have a hidden weapon.

Grayson, who was fired after shooting Massey in the face, Massey’s death stirred memories of other Black women killed by police in their homes in recent years, including Breonna Taylor and Atatiana Jefferson. Massey’s death stirred memories of other Black women killed by police in their homes in recent years, including Breonna Taylor and Atatiana Jefferson.

Sonya Massey, Breonna Taylor and Atatiana Jefferson did not commit any crimes, and one of them summoned the police who killed her to help when she thought she heard a prowler. Massey met the officers, welcomed them into her home, and followed their instructions until she took a bullet in the face.

Former Texas officer Aaron Dean, the 38-year-old White former Fort Worth police officer, was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison for the killing of Atatiana Jefferson in her home. Dean and his partner responded to Jefferson’s house around 2:25 a.m. on October 12, 2019, after a neighbor called a non-emergency police line to report that her doors were open.

The officers did not announce themselves as police at the home, and Dean fatally shot through a bedroom window at Jefferson, who had been playing video games with her nephew, who was 8.

On March 12, 2020, a Jefferson County Circuit Court judge approved five search warrants for locations linked to Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, a convicted felon suspected of supplying a local drug house. One of those locations was Taylor’s residence.

The death of 26-year-old Taylor, an emergency room technician, along with that of George Floyd and others, sparked nationwide protests in 2020, leading to changes in policing policy and laws.

In the early hours of March 13, ex-detective Brett Hankison and other officers executed a warrant at Taylor’s apartment. Taylor was in bed with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, when the officers announced their presence and then battered down the front door.

Former Detective Joshua Jaynes, 40, Detective Kelly Goodlett and Sgt. Kyle Meany, 35, were charged with submitting a false affidavit to search Taylor’s home ahead of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department’s raid, and then working together to create a “false cover story in an attempt to escape responsibility for their roles in preparing the warrant affidavit that contained false information,” according to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Hankison is alleged to have “willfully used unconstitutionally excessive force … when he fired his service weapon into Taylor’s apartment through a covered window and covered glass door.”

Taylor and Walker yelled to ask who was at the door but got no response, Walker said afterward. Thinking they were intruders, Walker grabbed a gun he legally owned and fired a shot when the officers broke through the door.

That triggered a volley of fire from the officers. Taylor, who was standing in a hallway with Walker, was shot multiple times. Walker was not injured.

“Somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend,” Walker said in a 911 call.

Hankison had been standing outside the apartment and is accused of blindly firing through a door and a window. His bullets entered a neighboring apartment, where a pregnant woman, a man and a child were home, according to the state attorney general.

Grayson, who faces first-degree murder charges, pleaded not guilty in Sangamon County Court on July 18 and remains in custody.

Gov. JB Pritzker and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton are formally calling for Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell to resign, expressing frustration with how the sheriff has responded to the shooting death of Sonya Massey.

Now, scrutiny has been placed on Campbell, who hired former Deputy Sean P. Grayson in May 2023 despite indications that he lacked the temperment to do the job.

Grayson had two DUI convictions before joining the law enforcement ranks, he was separated from the U.S. Army for “misconduct (serious offense)” on Feb. 27, 2016, and he had previously served in five other Illinois police departments between 2021 and his hiring at Sangamon County in 2023.

Some of Grayson’s references for the sheriff’s deputy position in Springfield noted he needed more on-the-job training.

Grayson has been charged by a grand jury with three counts of first-degree murder after shooting Massey in her own home on July 6, but that is little comfort for people who loved her.

Massey’s father and other community members raised concerns about hiring practices in the Sheriff’s office, noting that Grayson should never have been trusted with a badge and a gun.

Like much of Central Illinois, Sangamon County tilts Republican. Socially moderate and fiscally conservative, it reflects nearly all of downstate Illinois.

The harrowing episode of police violence leading up to her death and the aftermath echo the long-standing issues of systemic racism in America. The tragic end to Sonya Massey’s life is not an isolated incident but part of a larger pattern that must be urgently addressed.

Few things are more tragic than the loss of innocent lives at the hands of those who are supposed to protect and serve. Despite heightened activism and public outcry, police killings of civilians—especially people of color—are on the rise.

Law enforcement agencies across the country are failing to provide us with even basic information about the lives they take. According to Mapping Police Violence, a leading police violence research project, police killed at least 1,352 people in 2023, and nearly 800 so far in 2024—a number that puts America on track for another record breaking high.

The numbers keep rising each year, up from 1,266 in 2022, 1,186 in 2021, and 1,159 in 2020, the year protests erupted all over the nation in response to the brutal murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, who was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer.

The threshold for being perceived as dangerous, and thereby falling victim to lethal police force, appears to be higher for White civilians relative to their Black or Hispanic peers, but there is fundamentally nothing racial minorities can do to change that. Only when police and White Americans recognize the humanity in others will the situation change.