Sonya Massey's father discusses $10 million settlement: 'She would have been 37 years old today'

SPRINGFIELD — Eight months ago, Sonya Massey, called 911 to report a possible prowler.

Two Sangamon County sheriff's deputies responded. One of them shot and killed her.

“It is my daughter’s birthday," James Wilburn said Wednesday. "She would have been 37 years old today."

Wilburn had gathered with other members of Massey's family to discuss a $10 million settlement approved Tuesday by the Sangamon County Board.

The deputy who killed Massey, Sean Grayson, said he feared she would throw a pot of boiling water at him.

He was fired and charged with first-degree murder.

“He should have never been hired," Wilburn said, chiding Sangamon County, the Sheriff’s Office and the five other police departments in Central Illinois for which Grayson had worked. None flagged his misconduct.

Grayson, 30, also faces charges of aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. Records show he remains jailed in Macon County, and his next court date is March 24.

It's the largest legal settlement in the Sangamon County history, representing roughly 17% of the county’s yearly operating budget of $60 million.

But the family wants more than money.

"We want full justice, not partial justice,” Ben Crump, an attorney representing the Massey family said at Wednesday's new conference. “We want civil accountability, criminal culpability, and we want legislative changes. We want the laws to prevent something like this from happening again.”

Following the shooting, Sangamon County established the Massey Commission, made up of local residents, in an attempt to address racial inequities in policing. State lawmakers intend to make changes at a state level.

Legislation introduced by state Rep. Justin Slaughter, D-Chicago, and state Sen. Doris Turner D-Springfield, would establish a Law Enforcement Hiring Task Force. It's job would be to create measures to stop unfit candidates from joining law enforcement and also come up with strategies to avoid deaths caused by law enforcement officers.

“This is about building trust,” Slaughter said Wednesday. “We can build trust between law enforcement, between all the citizens of Illinois.”

Slaughter touted the SAFE-T Act, a sweeping police and justice system reform law passed in 2021, as a first step, but now the state needs to fill in the cracks that were not covered.

Illinois could be leaders in dealing with a system that allows “these frequent flyers, who go from one department to another, who are given the opportunity to resign rather than be fired because it’s an easier process and they go from one department to another, as this rogue cop did,” Wilburn said

“I have to thank the people of Springfield and the city,” he said. “They have been so great to us as a family, they have shown us much love in how this whole thing has been done.”