The family of Sonya Massey and officials from Sangamon county, Illinois, reached a settlement in which the Illinois county agreed to pay Massey’s family $10m.
“When Sonya Massey was staring at the barrel of his gun, she stooped down, said, ‘Sorry, sir, sorry,’ and the bullet was shot while she was in this stooped position, coming up,” the civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Massey’s family, said in a press conference last year.
Following the shooting, a citizen’s commission in Sangamon county, called the Massey commission, was founded “to take action and make recommendations that expand safe and equitable access to services by addressing systemic racism and mistrust in law enforcement and other helping professions”, according to the commission’s website.
Massey removed the pot herself, noted that Grayson backed away from it, and told him: “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Grayson drew his weapon and yelled at Massey to drop the pot.
The settlement comes nearly a year after Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman and mother of two, was shot and killed in her home by a sheriff’s deputy who was responding to her call for help.
