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.”

    • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 hours ago

      Devil’s advocate: If you saw the things that Hitler did and made others do, and then could be the one to kill him, I think there would be a significant portion of us who would get over human and living being empathy pretty quickly and then take quite a lot of deep, actual joy from ending him.

      I realize what you’re saying, but it just made me wonder if maybe they aren’t so wrong after all. For the record, I’ve never killed another person, and have never seen another person die in real life, and all real people I’ve seen killed in video have been truly awful. Yet, I feel like I could take the life of somebody I decidedly thought were irredeemingly bad if needed, and not feel very much remorse. And yet, I don’t want to have to ever find out… But still, there’s that age old question: kill or be killed? And I may hesitate. My genetic family has made it this far, I’d like to believe it wasn’t full of blissful murderers, but we all know that that’s what we all were; it’s how we think about, and systemically settle our differences now and into the future that matters. Is reconditioning or even prison truly hubris? I can’t believe so. Humans are intelligent and capable of not only change but evolution, we now know that as fact. That I, alone believe in change, yet myself come from a long line of survivors in the age old question of kill or be killed, is evidence of the contrary. Even if the hubris is learned, proves that we are capable of change and hope for better.

      Some murderers are gidddy after killing - I would argue that it doesn’t mean much. Even assuming they’re truly happy, it doesn’t define them as absolutely lost. Or maybe evolution states we purify the gene pool. What other things should we purify? Do you see the problem with that sort of fear? Maybe we should all be giddy with happiness to cleanse ourselves of perceived insanity. Or maybe the desire to do so is exactly how that murderer became that way to begin with.