A former Illinois deputy has been sentenced to 20 years for fatally shooting Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 for help.
Sean Grayson, 31, was convicted in October of second-degree murder. Grayson, who is white, received the maximum possible sentence and has been in police custody since being charged in the killing.
Massey’s family members, who were sitting in the court, celebrated his sentence with a loud cheer: “Yes!” The judge admonished them.
Grayson apologized during the sentencing, saying he wished he could bring Massey back and spare her family the pain he caused.
“I made a lot of mistakes that night. There were points when I should’ve acted, and I didn’t. I froze,” he said. “I made terrible decisions that night. I’m sorry.”
I’ve lived in IL my whole life. For half of that, the state was so corrupt that multiple governors were indicted for various crimes and ended up in jail. After Blagoyavich or whatever his name was, the pendulum swung hard back the other way. Today, after being a state employee for the last 15-years in addition to living here, I am glad we have accountability. I feel safe knowing my state and local cops can be held to account when things like this happen. It makes me, and them I’d like to think, feel safer in the community.
Nothing and no one is perfect, but Pritzker will probably go down as one of the better governors this state has had. And that’s saying something from a closeted anarchist who has despised this system for decades!