“When is enough, ENOUGH?”
That’s the question actress Tia Mowry asked in her latest Instagram post – a reaction to the death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who was shot and killed by former Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson in her Springfield, Illinois, home. She was 36, and a mother of two.
Mowry’s call for justice follows the release of body cam footage this week by the Illinois State Police officials, which shows officers’ interaction with Massey after responding to her July 6 call for help with handling a possible intruder. Instead of receiving assistance, she was killed.
Grayson has been fired, as well as indicted on three counts of first-degree murder, among other charges, CNN reported. He had worked for six other law enforcement agencies since 2020, prior to assuming his latest role in May 2023. He also pled guilty to two charges of driving under the influence in 2015 and 2016, and was fined for those transgressions.
Since the graphic body cam footage was made publicly available, scores of outraged individuals – several celebrity women among them – have used their platforms to ensure that justice is fully served on Massey’s behalf, as the nation mourns yet another Black woman falling victim to police brutality. The hashtags #SayHerName and #SonyaMassey have been trending on numerous social media sites as posters speak out online.
“I am literally shaking right now because … to see how someone’s life can be taken in such a way is so terrible and so disgusting,” Mowry, 46, said through tears in her Instagram video. “When is this going to stop?”
Fellow actress Taraji P. Henson also sought to raise awareness about Masey’s death, resharing a graphic created by Essence magazine bearing the phrase, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!” — some of Massey’s last words before she was killed.
Artist Solange Knowles, Beyonce’s sister, also shared her thoughts. “First words Sonya Massey said at her front door were, ‘don’t hurt me,’” Knowles wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “She was told, ‘why would we hurt you, you called us.’ When have those words meant anything when your Black and woman in this country[?]”
Political leaders have spoken out, too. Vice President Kamala Harris called the bodycam footage “disturbing” in an official press statement on Tuesday, and said that the nation has “so much work to do to ensure that our justice system fully lives up to its name.”
Massey’s family has partnered with known civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who called the bodycam footage “the worst police shooting video ever.” He added at a recent news conference that the U.S. Department of Justice has opened its own investigation into the incident.
These statements and prosecutorial efforts are the latest in a series of attempts to address the unlawful deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police, a scourge that has taken the lives of individuals such as George Floyd in Minneapolis, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and now Massey. Social justice activists – and members of the Black community in general – are seeking to effect change through these efforts.
Harris is among them, adding in her release that she and President Joe Biden are pushing Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. It’s a police reform bill that seeks to hold police officers accountable while attempting to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they’re meant to serve.
Such efforts are vital, activists say, because as civil rights lawyer and scholar Sherrilyn Ifill pointed out: “Every police killing of an unarmed Black man, woman or child damages our county … [and is] a stain on our nation’s very soul.”
