Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday said the sheriff whose deputy fatally shot Sonya Massey had failed at his job and should resign.
Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell has resisted calls to resign, telling NBC News in an interview last week that Sean Grayson, the deputy who killed Massey in her home in Springfield last month, was solely responsible for her death.
Massey called 911 early on the morning of July 6 to report a suspected prowler. Grayson and another deputy, who has not been identified, responded, and Grayson shot and killed Massey in an exchange over a pot of water.
Grayson said in a report written three days after the shooting that he feared “great bodily harm” or death because Massey twice said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” He said she later threw boiling hot water toward him. At the time she was shot, Massey is blocked from view in body camera footage released by the Illinois State Police, which conducted an independent investigation. Prosecutors have said the use of force was not justified.
“I called for the sheriff’s resignation because the sheriff has failed,” Pritzker told reporters at a bill signing Wednesday.
“He has failed to explain how he ended up hiring this deputy sheriff who has been fired from other departments,” Pritzker also said, misstating that Grayson had been terminated more than once. “He failed to put forth reforms that clearly need to be made — training and other reforms.”
Grayson worked for six law enforcement agencies in central Illinois in four years. Nearly two weeks after Massey’s killing, he was fired from the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office and charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct last month. He has pleaded not guilty and is jailed without bond.
Grayson joined the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in May 2023, after short stints as a part-time officer at three small police departments, and full-time positions at one police department and two sheriff’s offices, according to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. Those records show he sometimes worked two part-time jobs at once.
While personnel records provided to NBC News by four of those departments do not include any complaints or disciplinary action against Grayson, he was admonished by superiors at the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, where he worked immediately before he became a sheriff’s deputy in Sangamon County. Grayson disobeyed an order to halt a high-speed chase that ended in him striking a deer, which violated department policy, according to a disciplinary report in his personnel file. Other records from Logan County also show he had been reprimanded over inaccuracies in his police reports, among other things.
Campbell has said that he was not aware of documented issues with Grayson’s performance at previous agencies.
“He had been hired by five other agencies prior to ours, certified by the state of Illinois six times, including us, to work as a police officer,” Campbell said last week.
According to Grayson’s personnel file from Sangamon County, two of the six law enforcement agencies said he needed more training, while a third said he “did not demonstrate good officer safety skills.”
Grayson’s employment history, as well as two DUIs he pleaded guilty to in 2015 and in 2016 — the first of which led to his discharge from the Army, have led Massey’s family and many others to question how he was allowed to work in law enforcement.
A handful of Sangamon County Board members are pushing a referendum that would allow voters to decide in November whether Campbell should remain in office. In order for it to get on the ballot, the referendum would have to pass at the board’s next meeting next week.
On Wednesday, Pritzker also faulted Campbell for not having met with Massey’s family, while also making clear that he did not believe that alone was a fireable offense. Still, he said it seemed outrageous to him.
“At a minimum, listen to them, hear them, and then, hopefully, take action,” Pritzker said, adding that the lieutenant governor also called for Campbell to resign.
Pritzker said he had met with Massey’s family and promised them he would look at ways to prevent anyone else from being killed under the same circumstances.
Campbell said Wednesday that he had requested to meet with the Massey family through intermediaries designated by the family on four separate occasions. Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney who is representing Massey’s family, did not immediately return a request for comment.
“My requests have been rejected or not accepted,” said Campbell, a Republican who has been sheriff since 2018. “I am still willing to meet with the family.”
And he again said that he would not resign.
“Calls for my resignation are nothing more than political maneuvering during a tragic event and only hurt the good citizens of Sangamon County,” he said in a statement.
Without naming him, Campbell reiterated his assertion that it was Grayson alone who was responsible for Massey’s death and said that he agreed with Pritzker that there are still questions that need to be answered. He said his office is willing to modify its hiring practices “to prevent an incident like this from occurring again.”
“However, before changes can be made, it is important to identify the problem,” Campbell said. “We have used a process that we believe was consistent with statewide standards. If these standards are deficient, we would advocate a change at all necessary levels.”
He added: “I am committed to working with our community and elected leaders to improve not only the Sheriff’s Office but also hiring standards on a statewide level to prevent a state agency from certifying a similar law enforcement officer six different times in the future.”
Pritzker said Massey’s killing was a terrible tragedy “that never should happen anywhere in the United States, let alone in the state of Illinois or in Sangamon County.”
He said Massey had been killed “in horrific fashion,” citing the body camera video.
“I just can’t get past the idea that we have to do more to protect people,” he said, adding that a lot had already been done.
Pritzker credited the Illinois State Police with investigating Massey’s killing in less than two weeks, which he described as a “fulsome endeavor” that involves a lot of interviews.
Pritzker said he spoke to a Black elected official in Illinois shortly after Massey’s killing to get her perspective and she told him that, even though there was progress to be made, in years past “there never would have been an investigation, there wouldn’t have been a body cam, no one would have known what really happened.”
“And that may be the silver lining, if there is a silver lining in this, is that someone is being held accountable,” Pritzker said. “And yet we have much more to do.”
,
