By BETH HUNDSDORFER
Capitol News Illinois
[email protected]
Members of Sonya Massey’s family and their lawyers have called a press conference for Wednesday to call for appropriate federal and state legislation following Massey’s shooting.
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump called former Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson a “ticking time bomb waiting to explode,” but also blamed a system that failed to heed warning signs in Grayson’s past. Grayson held six police jobs in four years; he underwent disciplinary counseling for failing to follow orders from a superior, insubordination and inaccurate report writing; he was charged with two counts of driving under the influence and discharged from the military.
“There is blood on the hands of the system and on those of Sean Grayson,” Crump said.
The system is designed to document red flags in potential officers for law enforcement employers, Crump said, to keep citizens safe. He said he plans to push for the passage of federal legislation, such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which, among other things, creates a national database to track complaints and misconduct by police officers.
He also said he would work to add such provisions to Illinois state law, including a waiting period for officers changing jobs to ensure background and criminal record checks are fully completed before they begin.
Last week, Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell announced his resignation at the end of the month after questions arose about Grayson’s hiring, but Campbell described his response to the shooting as “proactive and transparent.”
James Wilburn, Sonya Massey’s father, said he was pleased with Campbell’s announcement.
“I’m glad he was man enough to fall on his sword like he should have,” Wilburn said. “The responsibility should be on him. He hired the people to do that background investigation that was completely inadequate. That man should never have been allowed to carry a badge and carry a gun in any county, not just Sangamon County.”
Questions were raised about the hiring and training of sheriff’s deputies during a nearly four-hour meeting of the Sangamon County Board Tuesday night, as well as calls for an independent investigation of the sheriff’s office.
Chet Epperson, a police practices expert and retired Rockford police chief with 33 years of law enforcement experience, told Capitol News Illinois that such a review could restore public confidence in the agency, but it should have been initiated immediately after the incident.
Once the shooting occurred, the sheriff’s office should have launched an administrative review of the entire event, Epperson said. That includes tactics, hiring, training, supervision and policies. Such an investigation would be independent of the criminal investigation by the Illinois State Police.
“Campbell’s announcement that he’s retiring is not the end of it. There are others who have done the work,” Epperson said. “If nobody in the sheriff’s office does something and it takes three years for the criminal and civil cases to go through the courts and nobody looks into what went wrong, then nothing changes. That’s terrible. That’s not fair to the other employees in the sheriff’s office or to the people of Sangamon County.”
The sheriff’s office continues to avoid questions about hiring and background checks. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the department declined to release hiring records, saying it did not have the relevant documents.
But the release of Grayson’s personnel files earlier this month revealed several lapses in the background check, including a failure to interview Grayson’s immediate supervisor at the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, where he previously worked.
Last month, Logan County released a two-and-a-half-hour recording of a disciplinary hearing that included Grayson’s insubordination, inaccurate police reports and failure to terminate a chase on orders from his supervisor.
Read more: Grayson’s behavior in Logan County prompted his supervisor to ask, “Why are you still employed by us?”
The Sangamon County background check did not include notes detailing an interview with Grayson’s immediate supervisor or the Logan County Deputy Chief of Police. The investigator only noted a conversation with a co-worker Grayson provided as a reference.
Grayson also cited as references a longtime friend who worked as a trooper with the Illinois State Police and former Sangamon County Deputy Scott Butterfield – the father of Grayson’s fiancée.
Grayson was hired by six law enforcement agencies in four years despite having two prior convictions for driving under the influence. Driving under the influence is not currently a disqualifying offense, but Crump pointed out that it should have been a red flag in the hiring process.
Grayson was also honorably discharged from the military. His discharge papers indicate that he was released before serving his sentence due to “misconduct.”
Just over a year after he was hired by Sangamon County, Grayson responded to a call about a burglar at a white frame home on a quiet street outside Springfield on July 6. Less than 15 minutes after meeting Massey at her front door, body camera video shows Grayson firing three shots at the unarmed woman in her kitchen following an argument over a pot of boiling liquid.
He is in jail in Menard County awaiting trial on murder and other charges.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that covers state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and television stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and the Southern Illinois Editorial Association.
