PEORIA — A white ex-cop charged with murdering an unarmed Black woman in her Springfield area home last year testified Monday that he fired his gun in self-defense, and that his actions “matched the threat level.”
Former Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson is on trial for murder for killing 36-year-old Sonya Massey in her kitchen after she had called the police on July 6, 2024, to report a suspected prowler.
This police shooting and the subsequent criminal trial have drawn national attention, due to the racial dynamics involved, and the graphic nature of police body-camera footage showing Massey’s death.
Grayson’s decision to make a surprise appearance on the stand as the defense’s first witness represented a high-stakes legal gambit aimed at clearing his name, and drew scoffs at several points from Donna Massey — Sonya’s mother — who was seated in the Peoria County courtroom.
Grayson, 31, seemed relaxed when he testified that he shot Massey in self defense because he believed she was about to throw a pot of boiling water at him. He said he had ordered Massey to remove the pot from her stovetop when she told him that she would “rebuke him in the name of Jesus.”
“It threw me off, it was out of nowhere,” Grayson said of Massey’s comment.
Body-worn camera footage introduced by prosecutors in the trial showed Massey had already removed the pot when Grayson said he would “shoot her in her f***ing face,” and pointed his gun at her. Massey then put her hands in the air, said, “I’m sorry,” and ducked behind her counter.
“We are trained to use force that will gain compliance to get the situation under control,” Grayson said. “In this situation, I matched the threat level, and the only thing that would have stopped the threat was my duty weapon.”
Grayson then testified he closed the distance between himself and Massey to “gain a direct line of sight on her,” and that he intended to arrest her for aggravated assault on an officer. That’s when, Grayson said, Massey jumped up, grabbed the pot of water and made a throwing motion at him. Grayson then fired three times at Massey, one bullet striking her just under her left eye.
Several members of the Massey family were seated in the courtroom gallery as Grayson testified.
Malachi Hill, Sonya’s teenaged son, stared expressionless at the former police officer. Donna Massey, Sonya’s mother, let out a “hmph” sound a few times during Grayson’s testimony.
On the other side of the aisle, Grayson’s family members were silently praying and reading from an annotated Bible.
Prosecutors have argued Grayson killed Massey without lawful justification because “he was mad at her.”
Under a roughly five-minute cross examination, Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser questioned Grayson about how details in his testimony did not square with what he wrote in his incident report of that night.
“You didn’t write telling Sonya Massey that ‘you better f***ing not, or you’ll shoot her in the f***ing face,’ did you?” Milhiser said.
“I don’t recall,” Grayson answered.
“If [the other responding officer] had his body-worn camera off, nobody would have heard you say that,” Milhiser said.
Several police use of force experts testifying as prosecution witnesses last week said Grayson violated several generally accepted de-escalation tactics. University of South Carolina Law Professor Seth Stoughton said Grayson should not have approached the counter Massey was ducking behind.
“The appropriate response is to deprive her of the opportunity [to throw the pot] by even walking out of the house,” Stoughton said. “Grayson made a series of decisions that were tactically unsound.”
Stoughton — who testified in the criminal prosecution of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis cop convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020 — analyzed body-worn camera footage from Grayson’s fellow responding officer. He broke down the moments leading up to the shooting frame-by-frame, starting with Massey telling Grayson she will “rebuke him in the name of Jesus.”
“She’s saying some things that don’t entirely make sense in the context… indications of some kind of mental health issues,” Stoughton said. “But there is certainly no behavior here to show intent to use [the pot] as a weapon.”
Grayson had only been at the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department for a little over a year before the shooting. He was working as a patrol cop on the midnight shift, and testified that Massey lived in a “high crime” neighborhood in Springfield’s South Side.
Massey’s killing sparked outrage from the Springfield community. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has worked with the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, who was killed by Louisville police officers in 2020, helped the Massey family secure a $10 million settlement with Sangamon County. He’s expected to attend the trial this week.
Meanwhile, Springfield area activists have traveled the 75 miles to Peoria every day of the trial to host rallies outside the courthouse. Grayson, who is facing three counts of first degree murder, could face up to life in prison if convicted.
The defense rested its case Monday. Attorneys on both sides will present their closing arguments Tuesday before leaving it up to the jury.