Crime & Law

Sonya Massey’s Family and Sangamon County Agree to $10M Settlement Over Fatal Shooting

(CNN) — Officials in Sangamon County, Illinois, have agreed to a $10 million settlement with the family of Sonya Massey — a Black woman who was shot and killed by law enforcement in her home last year.

The agreement was reached last week after mediation between lawyers representing both parties, according to a resolution posted by the Sangamon County Board.

The settlement now needs to be approved by county board, which is set to meet Tuesday evening to discuss and vote on it.

Massey, a 36-year-old mother of two, was killed July 6 after two Sangamon County sheriff’s deputies responded to her 911 call about a possible prowler at her home. She was shot and killed following a dispute with one of the responding deputies involving a pot of boiling water in her kitchen, body camera footage showed.

Massey’s family has said she struggled with mental health issues, and dispatch records showed the sheriff’s department had been told she was experiencing a mental health crisis.

One of the deputies, Sean Grayson, was fired and remains jailed on a first-degree murder charge. He has pleaded not guilty.

Massey’s death has led to renewed calls for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would set up a national database for tracking officers’ disciplinary issues or criminal offenses. Grayson’s issues with the law, the military and his work in policing spanned six agencies in four years.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a deal with the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in response to an inquiry into violations of federal anti-discrimination law in Massey’s shooting death. The deal would involve a series of remedies, including more training and use-of-force data reporting, so that policing activities would be carried out in a “nondiscriminatory manner.”

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