Good Nurse Bad Murder of Sonya Massey
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Hey everybody, this is Tina again with Good Nurse, Bad Nurse. Welcome back to another episode of this podcast where we use stories from the news to discuss issues in nursing and healthcare in general. Today we're going to discuss an absolutely horrific incident that took place only just about a month ago. This is August 2024.

This just happened about a month ago, and it really highlights so many of the issues that we talk about here on this podcast and try to bring awareness and educate people about and really just...

have, you know, candid conversations, honest discussions with people who are experts and out there actually living the reality of the issues that we're discussing. So this story in particular, I'm going to have to issue a trigger warning for. It's not going to be easy to discuss the details. It's not going to be easy for many of you to hear the details. It does involve gun violence, police misconduct, mental health issues. So

Just be aware, this is going to be a tough story to discuss, but it's one that we absolutely have to talk about. So before we get into the story, though, let me bring in my guest host for this week, emergency room nurse, educator, author, advocate, Brittany Daniels. Welcome back to the show, Brittany. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's amazing to be back. Amazing to catch up with you. I'm excited to dig in here. Absolutely. And I'm so glad to have you back. Always enjoy having you on the show. Absolutely.

And I know my listeners and I, we've all learned so much every time you've been on the show. And I really appreciate you taking the time to give your perspective and your wisdom on this story. It's an honor.

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to Adventist Health to learn more. That's goodnursebadnurse.com and click on the link to Adventist Health. So I guess we can get started. Might as well just dig right into the story. It's a lot. There are a lot of details. So kind of buckle up and just kind of be ready to listen to this one. So in the early hours of July 6, 2024, Sonia Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman from Springfield, Illinois, contacted the police.

fearing that an intruder had entered her home. There were two deputies that responded, Sean Grayson and an unidentified officer responded to the call and searched Massey's backyard and surrounding area, but found no signs of any suspicious activity or individuals. So after searching the property, Grayson knocked on Massey's front door multiple times without receiving a response.

Approximately three minutes later, Massey opened the door and began conversing with the deputies while using her cell phone. You can see her. I've watched the video. You can see her standing there. She has her phone. It's obviously a smartphone that she's sitting there. You can see her scrolling and looking down at it. You can also see before they go up, you can see the perspective of the unnamed deputy as he goes into the backyard and he walks. She has a fenced-in backyard, a

He walks all the way to the back, looks into like a shed area. It's closed, but there's a little crack, but it's padlocked. So you pretty much know there's no way anybody could be in there. Looks all around the backyard. You can tell he's sort of like not seeing anything. It's dark. It's the middle of night, but he has this flashlight. He comes all the way back around and then meets up with Grayson. Grayson, incidentally, not incidentally at all, I don't think, does not have his

his body cam on, that this unnamed officer does have it. So that's the only reason that we really know what happened. And that's going to be really important later on as we get into the details of what happened. The deputies informed her that their search had revealed nothing unusual.

As I'm watching the video, and you can see it's all over YouTube. It's out there. You can watch it. But when I'm watching it, what hits me so hard is because I've watched it multiple times. And when I went back recently to kind of rewatch it and remind myself sort of like, you know, what exactly happened, you know, with each step. And I paused it many times. Like I wanted to see exactly what was going on.

And what hit me so hard was how close they came to leaving at this point. This was at this point, it felt like it was going to be like, there's nobody here. Right, Brittany? Yeah. It's the sadness. Definitely. Yeah.

That was the window, right? That was the window of prevention for anything to escalate. And it kills me. It truly, my chest hurts when I think about the fact that it felt like they were looking for a reason to stay. 100%. 100%, Brittany. I totally get where you're coming from there. It felt as though...

Really, it was, she was fine. I felt, she called 911. She was asking for help. She was saying, I think there's an intruder. They showed up. They searched the perimeter of the property. She's inside her house. She's not saying somebody's in my house. She thinks someone's outside. They searched the perimeter of the property. There is no one there. And they tell her, there is no one here. We could not find anyone. And she's like, okay.

And it seemed as though she was going to go back into the house and that was going to be the end of it. And yet the officer stayed and continued. Like one of them went and looked at a car that was there and the other one kept asking like, well, do you have some identification? It just, I got the sense that they just wanted to continue for whatever reason.

At one point, someone said, all right, well, something, something, something, we're going to get out of your hair.

And I just keep thinking, I keep replaying that in my head. Why didn't you get out of her hair? What made you want to stay there? What made you want to pursue this innocent woman? The hostility started early. It started when she didn't answer the door immediately, right? We see Officer Sean getting so annoyed that she's not coming to the door right away. And he's saying, hurry up.

And then when she comes to the door, the first thing he asks, what took you so long to answer the door? Right. And it just gives that feeling of superiority versus she is inferior to him, subservient to him. You should answer the door the second I knock. That sort of those are the feelings that I was having when I was watching that that specific part. Yes, absolutely. So when I'm looking at my show notes and I read the words, you know, that as they were wrapping up the conversation, maybe.

My goodness, if only that were the case. And they really did wrap up that conversation. But that is not what happened. As Grayson and Sonia Massey were having this conversation that sort of felt like it was ending, the unidentified officer went around the side of the house to check the license plate of a vehicle in the driveway.

So she did say that that vehicle did not belong to her. And you can hear her hear them say, you know, is this your vehicle? Whose vehicle is that? Now we'll find out later that there is a window that's been broken out of that, that car. And so I guess to them, maybe that looked a little suspicious. Like why is there a vehicle parked in your driveway? And the,

A window is busted out of it and you're saying it's not yours and you don't. And if you listen to the conversation, she says, I don't know. I don't know whose it is. They just some it just somebody brought a hair and left it. And so.

They just kept pushing the issue. Now, if you really go back and think about that, why do they care? What law has been broken? They were there to check the perimeter of the property. They were there because she needed help because she was afraid there was an intruder. Once there's no intruder, there is nothing else to investigate. You don't need to care about whose car that is. If she says...

If she's not concerned about the car, you shouldn't be. That's how I feel about it. Anyway, if she's not concerned about it, you don't need to be concerned about it. But that's just that's how I looked at that situation. Like, go. Your work here is done. Go. Exactly. Exactly right.

So meanwhile, Massey and Grayson continue their discussion. Once the other officer returned, all three of them entered Massey's home. So what is happening is Massey and Grayson in their discussion, which Grayson came across as though he did not like the fact that she did not come to the door quickly because you can hear him...

sort of with some aggression in the tone of his voice, say, why didn't you come to the door when we knocked first time? Like, what took you so long to get to the door? And she is in a bathrobe

It's obviously in the middle of the night. She grabbed, she took her robe and she said, oh, I had to, you know, had to get some clothes on. She, it was very, very, her mannerisms, her body language was very innocent, very benign, very, you know, very, you know, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very,

I'm a woman living alone in my house in the middle of the night. There was just no aggression from her whatsoever. I'm telling you, if you watch the video, that's the vibe. And there's no way anybody could have taken that any other way. And yet it turned into... So do you have some ID on you? So for some reason, when you call...

to ask for help because you think there's an intruder, you have to show the police officer your identity, which I guess someone could argue that, well, what if it's the intruder and they've got, you know, they've somehow...

No reasonable person who met her in this situation would think that an intruder is, you know, this 36 year old woman standing there in her bathrobe. That's obviously not a reasonable assumption that that that that could possibly be she could possibly be the person that somebody was calling about.

Not at all. So as Brittany said, it felt to me like they, or at least Grayson, was looking for an excuse to get into the house. And remember, he did not have his body cam on. And they are supposed to turn that body cam on as soon as they start responding to a call. He should have turned it on right away. He should not have stepped foot on her property without that body cam on. And he knows it. And everybody knows it.

Yeah, we're going to find out more about that later on. Inside the house, Grayson repeatedly requested that Massey provide her driver's license and also inquired about the vehicle again parked in the driveway. So while the unidentified deputy examined the residents, and I keep saying that because they never they still have not released his name yet.

While you can sort of, you're watching Grayson from the perspective of this unidentified deputy, and he at one point turns and looks into a sort of like side bedroom. So you can see, you can sort of tell he's looking around. He's kind of just examining things. They don't necessarily get any sort of vibe from him. Grayson has pretty much been running the conversation this whole time. He's really driving this forward.

Sonia Massey starts looking through a little stack of papers. She's looking through her purse. She's looking for her identity. And maybe my perspective is influenced by knowing, you know, ultimately I know some things, I guess that maybe they didn't know at first, but...

It appears as though there is some sort of a mental health crisis going on. She comes across, you know, like she doesn't always know, like she starts looking for her ID and maybe it's almost as if she's forgetting what she's doing. And I've just taken care of so many patients in the hospital in this situation that I know exactly what that looks like. So I don't know if they necessarily should have known it. That's another thing we're going to talk about.

It's the lack of education and training that police officers get for responding to mental health crisis and how inappropriate it is for them to be responding in situations like this. But she's sitting there going through her purse, and she's not able to find her ID, which is you're in your house. If you're in your house, what do you have to have an ID to be in a house? I didn't know this, Brittany. I guess I'm ignorant because I thought I could be in my house and not have an ID. Did you know this?

Let me tell you something. I don't know where my wallet is right now, but I would say at least 80% of the time when I'm at home, I have no clue where my wallet is. Zero. Zero.

Same. Same here. I totally am. I would be exactly the same way. Like, I'm like, where's my purse? My husband would be the same way. We would be falling all over each other trying to find our wallet. And that's if we're not having a mental health crisis. In retrospect, I felt like she felt something coming. She felt a vibe coming.

And it was not a good vibe. I think she felt a negative, some negative energy or something coming from she did. She got a bad feeling. She did. She did. And that was clear from the jump because the first thing she said, maybe it was the second after she opened the door was to please don't hurt me.

And a lot of people miss that because Sonia has a small voice versus the officers who have big voices and she's quiet and she's petite. But I heard her say, please don't hurt me. And I said, well, why would we hurt you? We're here, you know, you called us.

And I still struggle with that too, right? That exchange, please don't hurt me. Why would we hurt you? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's tough. And, you know, as you stated, she, she was obviously dealing with some sort of mental health crisis and needed some redirection, right? Because she's looking for her ID and then she's over here and she's grabbing that and looking at this and starts reading something. And it almost seemed like for a second, they tried to

redirect her. It seemed like they noticed how sort of all over the place she was and said, okay, let's do one thing at a time. Let's do this, right? Let's find your ID and then we'll do that.

And so that helped her. So at that point, she stopped digging through everything else, focused on finding the ID. And that's when they said, well, why don't you go turn off that water? At one point, she asked Grayson to hand her a Bible. I think she was looking for a Bible. After about a minute and a half, the deputies suggested they noticed that there was water on the stove, like in an open pot that was boiling. And

They suggested, hey, why don't you go turn off that water? And you can hear them say, you know, we don't want to start a fire, but

And so then she very calmly, very reasonably walked into the kitchen. You can watch this whole thing on the, on the unidentified deputies body cam. She walks into the kitchen very casually. You see her very casually grab the pot. At this point, something, and I, I do think that they,

And it's still up in the air as to whether or not they knew she had previously had, and we're going to talk about this in a little bit, but whether or not she previously had some mental health crisis. But I think they're claiming that they didn't know. But it felt as though they sort of, they knew because they were saying some things that indicated that they knew. But when she was at that stove with that pot of water, they both kind of like took a couple of steps back. And she noticed that.

And she, okay, if you guys haven't seen the video, they're, they are in the living room. There is a, like an open counter kind of like bar, like a large counter. It's completely in between Sonia and the police officers. Like it literally divides them and there's cabinets underneath it. Like there's, there's plenty of room between Sonia and these police officers, but they took a couple of steps back. And when they did, she said,

where are you going? Like, again, not aggressive. I cannot emphasize that enough. She said, where are you going? And when that happened, one of the police officers says, well, I don't want to get, you know, burned sipping away from that hot steaming water. When they said that, she responded by saying, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.

And Grayson, the police officer who is named, said, what? And immediately it happened so fast. This all happened so fast. It was just like, it felt like milliseconds. But because the way this escalated is absolutely that I've never seen anything like it before. And I've watched so many videos of people.

Just like this, I've watched so many where you're just, you know, you don't understand, like, why did they shoot this person? But this one in particular is so hard to, it's hard to watch. It's hard to understand. There's just no, it's not reasonable. It just isn't. But very, very quickly, when he says, I'm backing away from your hot steaming water,

She says, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. And then he said, what? And she said, she repeated it and said, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. And as it's coming out of her mouth the second time, he says, he literally says, you better not. I swear to God, I'll shoot you right in your face. Brittany, I can't imagine any situation, any scenario in which it would be appropriate for a police officer to say something like that to anyone. Right.

There is no situation, right? I cannot wrap my head around someone feeling like it's appropriate to pull a gun on someone who's standing in front of a pot of water, especially given the fact that she put the water down. When...

And I'm getting ahead of ourselves too. But when she put the water down, she had the oven, the little mittens in her hand to protect her hands from the heat. That's the only thing that was in her hands when she was shot. And so, like you said, it happened incredibly quickly. It seemed to me, and I can only speculate, and I will, it seemed to me that

Sean, that's his name. Doesn't matter. He wanted some action. He wanted to hurt someone. He wanted this woman to pay for wasting his time, for bringing him out to her house, for not obeying his commands immediately, for not responding as quickly as he wanted her to.

To me, it seemed as though all of this sort of snowballed for him. And like you said, he's however many feet away from this water that she's not even holding anymore at this point. And you have your gun pointed at her. And I could almost feel the confusion and the other officers' perspective watching the body cam footage.

You know, he obviously pulled his gun too, but I almost feel like it was a reflex. Like maybe he felt like he was missing something or, you know, he pulled his gun, I need to pull mine. And I'm not excusing what he did at all because he shouldn't have had his gun pointed at Sonia either. Neither of them should have. But I could almost sense the confusion in the second officer's perspective, right?

Because it felt like it escalated quickly for him too. It was like you couldn't keep up. And it's a video that if you watch once, you can't understand it. You have to watch it multiple times to even be able to begin to digest what is happening.

in a chronological way. And it was just, it was jarring. Nobody should have pulled their gun on a woman who's standing there in her bathrobe in her kitchen with a pot of water that she walked over there because you told her to walk over there and turn it off. And then she says, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. I mean,

I've heard people say that so many times. I live in the South, so maybe that's the difference. Who in the world thinks that's a threat? I rebuke you and then I rebuke you. To me, I understand because I live in the South. I get it. I get Christianity. I get religion. I get people who think that way, who are like, I guarantee you, I know what Sonia was thinking at that point. She saw something evil in that person, in her eyes, in her mind. She saw evil.

Something that she felt like,

was evil. And she was protecting herself. She was not going to throw water on him. She was protecting herself by calling on the name of Jesus to protect her in that situation from that evil that she was perceiving for whatever reason. Something did not feel right to her. And she was calling on the name of Jesus for protection. There is no way she was saying, I rebuke you. Like, that means I'm going to kill you. That's not what that means. And what world does

Does anybody think that? I'm not a religious person at all. So when I had to actually look up, what does it mean to say I rebuke you in the name of Jesus? What does that mean? And what I found is what you just said, right? It means, you know, I see something dark or the devil is working and I'm going to work against him, right? I'm not going to let him do his thing. That's what I gathered from that statement. But to be clear, 100% clear, even if Sonia had said,

I will throw this fucking boiling water at you right now. That still doesn't excuse pulling a gun on her. That still doesn't excuse shooting her in the face. She could have said, I swear to God, Sean and you other officer, I will throw this shit at you right now. I will throw this over the counter. And it still doesn't excuse what they did.

Absolutely. I agree with you, Brittany. It doesn't, there's no way that, that those, the actions of these officers were the actions that should, that they should have been taking in order to deescalate a situation like this with a woman, this tiny 36 year old woman in her bathrobe standing there. It's, it's, it's, it's unimaginable and it makes no sense whatsoever. I mean, I understand it's difficult. I showed my, my husband this video and,

And he watched it, but he said, oh, I don't want to watch this. And I was like, you have to watch it. Because I'm sorry, but I can't stand that. Like, you can't just not watch it. You got to watch this. You have to know that this is the sort of thing that's going on. You have to be outraged. You have to be sick at your stomach. You have to be disgusted. You have to be sad. You have to be complacent.

completely ripped apart. That's what has to happen. If you just go, oh, no, no, no, no, that's too sad. I don't want to know. Be outraged, be sad, be whatever it is you're going to feel, but feel it for her sake. She deserves that.

I couldn't have said it any better. You're absolutely right. It is not acceptable to put blinders on and pretend like this stuff isn't happening just because you are a part of a group that isn't affected by it, right? You are absolutely right, 100%. I echo everything you just said. So as Brittany said, the unidentified deputy also drew his gun, but Massey immediately apologized. Sonia Massey, you can hear her say, okay, I'm sorry.

That will crush your absolute soul. If it doesn't, then something's wrong with you. Because when you're watching this video, especially because like I said, I watched it multiple times, I went back and paused it at certain places just trying to see like, what happened? What is going on at this point, at this point, at this point, at this point, just trying to really get a grip on what happened.

and understand it and get that feeling that you're talking about, Brittany, where you're like, you kind of feel like you know the vibe, you know what was going on. And when she says, okay, I'm sorry, she is literally taking a victim's, she is withdrawing, she is not attacking, right? Right?

Exactly. Hands are up. She's, you know, her shoulders, her shoulders are shrugged. Her hands are up. She's making her body smaller and she's, she's surrendering to whatever it is they think is happening. She is showing them that I am not a harm to you. I'm not, I'm sorry. And what happened? Right? And she dropped to the floor behind the kitchen counter,

behind the kitchen counter. Despite this, both deputies advanced from the living room into the kitchen. They stepped, they basically, Grayson, the one that's kind of, the one that doesn't have the body cam on, he is in front of the unidentified one. So you're seeing this whole thing play out, but he steps in front of the unidentified police officer. And therefore, right as it happens, you don't actually see what's going on because Grayson

They can't see her because she's so, she's on the floor. She's on the floor. Do you think, honestly, come on, she crouched down on the floor with a pot of boiling water and she's going to be a threat to them? She got down on the floor and they had to step around this counter in order to see her. And at that moment, absolutely.

And after, after she crouched down on the ground, when she's down on the floor, that is when Grayson fired three shots, killing her. Now, CBS News reported that footage of the incident showed Massey appeared to be holding the pot of water above her head just before the shots were fired. I watched this so many times and paused and paused and paused and paused. I don't get it. I don't understand why anybody would think that.

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And with today's technology, I'm baffled that a major news organization reported on something that is so obviously wrong, right? This is body cam footage. This is not doctored footage. This is not something that someone edited to make look different. This pot is on the sink or in this either on the sink or in the sink, whatever. It's not in her hands.

when she's on the ground. And it's definitely not in her hands when she tries to stand up.

But you're right. They engaged her. They moved toward her. And I don't I'm not a police officer, thank God. But I don't know what the protocol is for a situation like that. But I know that it's not moving towards that person with a gun in your hand. If you think, OK, at this point, we're going to arrest her for whatever. She did nothing wrong. Right. But whatever. If you're deciding that's what you're going to do, detain her, whatever.

Holster your fucking guns, go in the kitchen and gather her up like you do everybody else that you go and arrest, right? Put her on her belly and handcuff her. Question her, whatever you need to do.

She did nothing wrong. I cannot express how innocent this woman was. But if, worst case scenario, if you decide that you want to detain this woman for whatever reason you feel is appropriate, do it without your gun. Yes, but instead of that, they did. They walked around the countertop to be able to see her, or at least Grayson did. And then that officer fired multiple shots. He shouted the F word multiple times. You can hear a beep.

And when you hear that, it's like, oh, what is that? But his partner, the one that you're watching the body cam from, said, mine is on. Okay. Okay. So then you realize, oh, Grayson, it occurs to him after he kills her.

After he shoots her three times, after he fired three times from his gun, he starts, he yells shots fired, shots fired, shots fired, shots fired, starts, you know, F-bomb, F-bomb, F-bomb. And then you hear this beep. He looks down and then his partner says mine was on. So he's talking about his body cam. What is the first thing he thinks of after he shoots her? Oh, my body cam. Oh, I forgot to turn my body cam on. Yes.

And I'm sure he was just destroyed inside when his partner said, mine is on, right? Because it seemed as though immediately, and again, I'm speculating, don't care. It seemed as though immediately he starts working on putting together a storyline, right? How am I going to explain this, right? And we see that when he goes out to his car and

I mean, just strolls out to his car in the slowest fashion I've ever seen someone walk to get his medical equipment. And, you know, he's calling dispatch to find out he's using police code to find out she's got mental health issues. And then when they confirm whatever you hear him say, well, that explains it. Right. And so now he's working on the story. He's working on cooking up an explanation for why he shot her.

So I'm sure that when he found out that the body cam footage had been on from his partner, that he was just all broken up inside because that tampers with his storyline. Yeah. So the unidentified deputy radioed in that shots had been fired and reported that there was a woman with a head wound. And as he started to... So...

Another thing, Brittany, why? Once you shoot someone in the head, I'm pretty sure you can put your fricking gun back in your holster. I don't think you have to keep lethal on them at that point. At that point, you can, you know, I think they're subdued. They're not going to, she's not going to throw that pot of hot boiling water on you anymore. You don't have to be afraid anymore. You can put your gun in your holster. But they kept it on her.

And for eight years, I've taken care. Do you know how many gunshot wound victims I've taken care of that were that were shot in the head in the face people shot have shot themselves in the face like through their mouth through all sorts of wounds, gunshot wounds and survived. Absolutely. I wouldn't have been taking care of them had it had they not survived. And yeah, no, you give aid and they know that.

Absolutely know that it is of the time is of the essence. You get your medical kit, you get medics in there, you do whatever you have to do. I don't care if you don't you don't have the right to pronounce someone dead. You start rendering aid to them.

Exactly. And that's, I mean, I feel like that's Police Academy 101, right? Someone's hurt, you tend to them. And it almost sounded like a bit of a chuckle to me when he said, oh, that's a headshot, dude. She's done. And it just, it seems so dismissive.

And just the lack of respect for her as a human. And, you know, after even after the I wouldn't say after her death because she wasn't dead yet. Right. She's still gasping for air. You know, she's struggling to breathe. And he said, just let just let her. He didn't finish his sentence. Right. But he said, just let her. And so you think, what was he going to say? Just let her die.

Yeah, and there were some audio recordings that captured someone that sounded like somebody was saying that that gunshot wound was self-inflicted. And maybe that was just a misunderstanding because...

I don't know if at some point someone was, they were going to, there's no way they could, you know, they could ever sell that. It obviously came from his gun, but that was something that was kind of, there was definitely some misinformation floating around about that. She was pronounced dead later at St. John's Hospital in Springfield. So the body camera footage of the incident, including the audio, was made public on July 22nd. The footage released showed more from the perspective of Grayson's partner, as we said, than Grayson himself, because in the aftermath,

So he did turn his camera on at that point. So you did see from then on, you can see his, there's camera footage, but a lot of good that does this. In the aftermath, Grayson repeatedly questioned whether there was any recording of Massey being quote 1096, any record of Massey being quote 1096, which is a police code indicating a person with a mental health issue. So

And the fact that he's asking that, you know, is there any record of her being, you know, having any mental health issues is essentially what he's saying. According to the police summary, Massey allegedly, quote, threw steaming hot water on a chair next to the cabinets. In the video, you don't see, I don't, I did not see her throw the water at all, let alone in the direction of the officers. I also never heard her make any sort of statement or action that a reasonable person would have construed as a threat.

Sean Patrick Grayson, the 30-year-old deputy from Riverton, Illinois, who was involved in the killing of Sonia Massey, had been employed by six different police departments in Illinois between 2020 and 2024.

Four year time period, six different police departments. Brittany, my husband is a manager and for what he does, he manages a lot of people. And one of the things that he talks about is how like in this day and age, like people move around jobs a lot. And so it's harder to find people who like have been at a job for, you know, a few years. But even taking that into consideration, six different

different jobs in four years is no, that's a red flag. That's absolutely a red flag, especially when we talk about all of the behavioral and misconduct issues that were brought up when they started doing some digging. My question is, why weren't y'all doing this digging to begin with, right? We think about how tough it is to become a nurse. And I know nurses who

stole some candy when they were a teenager and they get questioned about that as an adult nurse who's trying to get a job, right? Or trying to get their nursing license. So how's a police officer job hopping with all these issues on his, on his record and no one's saying anything, no one's doing anything. And, and,

And I just want to say, going back to when you said that he accused Sonia of throwing the water on him, when Donald Trump was at the convention for Black journalists, he literally, when he was questioned about the Sonia Massey murder, he literally said, the one where she, and he took his hands and almost like charade type moves.

in a charade type matter, acted like he was holding a pot of water and then made the motion of throwing the pot of water. He said, oh, the one that where the woman and then he's using his hands to throw this imaginary pot of water, right? So that is, I mean, the fact that the country is in this place where we're able to make accusations that are so deeply internalized that we're able to

picture someone doing something that they never even did is insane to me. And so I just wanted to make sure that I mentioned that before we move forward. But six jobs in four years is crazy. That's insane. Yes. And earlier in his life while serving in the Army-

Grayson had two misdemeanor DUI convictions in 2015 and 2016, with the first DUI resulting in his discharge from the military in February 2016 for serious misconduct. Following his discharge, Grayson lived in Junction City, Kansas. His lawyer revealed that he was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer in the fall of 2023.

The lawyer also asserted that Grayson was not a threat to the community, noting that he was compliant and turned himself in within half an hour after his arrest warrant was issued. So in addition to them finding out about these two DUIs and him being discharged from the Army, you can also find video out there on YouTube of it's a police car dash cam of him in a high-speed chase car.

with someone who had apparently been speeding and he had been chasing them. He was told to stand down. Instead, he decided to go like up above 100 miles an hour after this person and then was dishonest about it. And that was apparently, and there's video of his deputy, the deputy chief, his subordinate,

superior, berating him, like completely letting him have it and telling him you're just, you know, like you don't deserve to wear this uniform if you're going to be dishonest and that sort of thing. So as you said earlier, there's a history here.

So following the shooting, the Sangamon County Sheriff's Office initiated an investigation, which was then handed over to the Illinois State Police. The investigation was completed within 10 days, two weeks after the incident. The Sangamon County Sheriff's Office terminated Grayson's employment, while the second unidentified officer was placed on administrative leave on July 17th in 2024.

A grand jury indicted Grayson on five charges, including three counts of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated battery with a firearm, and one count of official misconduct. Grayson is currently being held without bail. State Attorney John Milhiser's review concluded that Grayson was not justified in using deadly force, comparing his actions to an officer who deliberately places himself in danger and then uses that as justification for lethal force. Exactly what you were saying, Brittany.

Yep, absolutely.

Sean Grayson stated in the police report dated July 9th, quote, as I approached the cabinet, Sonia stood up from a crouched position, grabbing the pot, raising it above her head and throwing the boiling substance to me. I was in imminent fear of getting boiling liquid to my face or chest, which would have caused great bodily harm or death. I fired my duty weapon in Sonia's direction. That is not the account that I personally saw the multiple times that I watched this video.

This statement is honestly, I have secondhand embarrassment just knowing that he made those claims. It is comical. The delusions, right, that this man is experiencing and he really wants to have been in danger so badly. And it truly, again, I keep saying this, but it baffles me that this,

He is trying to make Sonia out to be the perpetrator when in fact he was the perpetrator the whole time.

So records revealed that there were two emergency response calls made from Sonia Massey's home in the days leading up to her death. And this is going to break your heart. One of the calls, Massey's mother, Donna Massey, reported that her daughter was experiencing a mental breakdown and expressed her concern to the dispatcher saying, I don't want you guys to hurt her.

She also voiced her fear of the police and specifically requested that, quote, no prejudice officers be sent. In the other two calls, a woman who did not identify herself but was calling for Massey's address claimed that people were trying to harm her. And then the following day, a woman identifying herself as Sonia Massey reported that a neighbor had struck her with a brick and

It does not appear that the deputies responding to the Prowler on July 6th were informed of her history of mental health issues. Sheriff Jack Campbell released Grayson's personnel file in response to public records requests.

The records confirmed that Campbell was aware of Grayson's two DUI convictions, the first of which resulted in his early discharge from the Army. Despite these convictions and Grayson's history of rapidly changing jobs, Campbell defended Grayson, noting that DUIs do not automatically disqualify a candidate. Again, that would make it really difficult to get a nursing license. Nearly impossible.

Campbell also mentioned that Grayson's frequent job changes reflected his ambition to advance to larger and more structured departments. That's one way to spin it. Grayson's psychological evaluation from March 31, 2023 found him fit for duty, but noted that he had a tendency to act too quickly and needed to slow down to make sound decisions. The personnel file includes the results of the internal investigation that led to Grayson's dismissal.

The investigation concluded that Grayson violated policies on the use of force, failed to activate his body camera, did not provide medical aid, and was insubordinate by refusing to answer questions during the investigation. Chief

Deputy Anthony Mayfield noted that Grayson escalated the situation to deadly force unnecessarily and failed to employ nonviolent strategies leading to Massey's death. Family members have shared that Massey had struggled with mental health issues and had sought treatment. Her son Malachi Hill Massey, I've seen him in videos, said,

Absolutely gut-wrenching. He mentioned that his mother had sent him and his sister to live with their fathers at the beginning of July because she had checked herself into a 30-day inpatient treatment program but returned home two days later. He also said that the family was given the impression that Sonia had shot herself.

herself. Massey's family has retained Ben Crump, a well-known civil rights attorney who has represented other victims in high-profile police brutality cases such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The Justice Department is also conducting an investigation into the case.

So President Joe Biden stated, quote, Americans should be able to call for help without fearing for our lives, emphasizing Massey, quote, should be alive today. Vice President Kamala Harris echoed Biden's sentiments, praising the swift action of the state attorney's office and urging Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act today.

a bill she coauthored in the Senate. She stressed that Massey deserved to be safe and was tragically killed in her own home at the hands of a responding officer sworn to protect and serve. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker strongly condemned the killing

expressed his outrage that another innocent black woman lost her life at the hands of a police officer and thanked the Springfield State's Attorney's Office for promptly filing the appropriate charges. He later called for Sheriff Jack Campbell to resign.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois offered his condolences to Massey's family and acknowledged the thorough investigation conducted by the Illinois State Police and the timely charges brought by the Sangamon County State's Attorney. In response to the killing and the subsequent protests by Massey's family and supporters, the city of Springfield increased its police presence significantly.

Wow. Seriously. Sheriff Jack Campbell announced his resignation today. That literally just happened hours ago. This is August the 9th of 2024. And he announced his resignation today, just a little more than a month after Sonia was killed. His resignation comes today.

two days after Governor J.B. Spritzker requested it and would be effective August 31st. In a statement, he wrote, "...it has become clear that the current political climate has made it nearly impossible for me to continue effectively in my role. Some individuals would rather see our community divided and in turmoil than allow me to continue serving as sheriff. The health of me and my family, the sheriff's office, and our community has been my priority."

So, yeah, that's what he had to say about that. So, Brittany, this has been, man, what a story. This is a story that I am honored to tell with you. And this has actually caused just so much heartache in the Black community. You know,

For many reasons. We think about the murder of George Floyd and Mike Brown, which today is the anniversary of his death.

The media responds differently to a Black woman being killed versus a Black man being killed. Excluding Breonna Taylor, I think that we had a decent response from the media on Breonna Taylor's murder. But aside from that, I feel like when Black women are killed, they don't get the media presence that Black men receive after their death. And, you know, as tragic as it is in both situations, I just think it's important that

that we recognize that Black women are just the most mistreated people in this world, really. And Sonia should be alive today. Sonia did not get the help that she needed. And I meant to say this earlier, they asked her if her mental health was okay. And she said, yeah, I'm taking my meds. And this was before they even entered the house.

So, even as a nurse, I don't take care of a patient without knowing their medical history, right? I don't take care of someone without knowing what's been going on in the past with them. And I think the same holds true for police officers. When they respond to a specific address or a certain license plate or something like that, I think they get on their little stupid computer and they type in whatever information they have and find out what they can on their

the person or people that they're going to see beforehand. So there's no way that they had no knowledge of anything about Sonia before responding to her home. And in addition, like I said, asking her, all right, you doing okay? Like mental, your mental okay? Is your mental health all right? And her saying, yeah, I'm taking my meds. To me, that screams, yes, she has something going on,

She is, you know, you're recognizing that, and yet you're still, again, pursuing this woman. Well, there clearly needs to be some sort of resources in place for situations where there are known people at facilities. There are certain states that have resources.

that have resources in place so that if there is a, if it's a mental health issue, if the police are called to, for a mental health crisis, there is a person that goes with them that is a mental health, someone, a mental health professional in some capacity. Specialist. Yes. Yes.

Right, right. And those people go and they understand how to deescalate a situation. They're there to advocate for the person there in the mental health crisis and to keep it from turning into this sort of situation. I personally believe there needs to be some sort of federal law in place and funding to go along with it that says that any time there is, and really, you know, because there was this whole, there's this whole transcript.

If you go on the website, the government website for the county that shows every call that came in and what happened and how they responded. And they also responded to some media questions in this. Right.

One of the things that they said is, well, we can't necessarily mark a home like a residence as having like, this is a residence that has a known person with a mental health that has been known to have a mental health crisis or something like they can't, they're not apparently allowed to do that. I personally believe that needs to change. I think that that needs to, it needs to be understood like fully.

There is someone living in this home who could possibly, you know, who has had mental health issues who could, this could escalate some point. And then, um,

someone who is an expert in mental health crises has to go with the police officers out there. Now, what they say is like, time is of the essence. And so when someone calls for help, you can't just wait around and do all this research and call in this resource or that resource. I kind of call BS on that. I feel like if you really wanted to have that in place, that person could be there at the police station,

And yeah, I just I don't I don't believe that it's not possible. And I think it's absolutely necessary. And had there been somebody there to recognize what those circumstances.

Those, those red flags that were coming, that they were subtle. In some, some cases they were subtle, but what was coming from Sonia, but you could tell that she was having, she was having some sort of mental health crisis. It was, I think a lot of times people who struggle with mental health issues, they learn how to handle the, conduct themselves in a way that they don't give it away. And I think that she was doing that and they don't say a lot. She was not saying a lot. She was

Kind of like looking at her phone, being, you know, just sort of like being vague with their answers. And I think that that's the way dementia people will do. They'll be real vague with their answers because they know they have a problem. They know that they have a tendency to, if they, if somebody asks them a question, they could answer it wrong. So they, you know, they get in that mode. And I feel like I saw that from her. I saw some hesitancies and some

you know, behaviors that should have been indicative of that she was having a mental health crisis. I never saw anything that should have made anyone feel like their life was in danger, that they were in danger of, of physical, you know, bodily harm, anything like that. Yeah. Especially with her being literally more than half, less than half the size of officer Sean, former officer Sean, convict Sean. Um,

Also, I feel like, like you were saying, if we had those resources, those mental health resources readily available for folks in the community, I don't just think that Sonia Massey would still be alive. I think that Earl Moore Jr. would still be alive. And it's not lost on me that he was killed recently.

by paramedics in the exact same city, exact same county as Sonia Massey and was pronounced dead at the exact same hospital. Like,

If that's not alarming, you know, I don't know what is. It should be. Well, I don't know much else we can add to this at this point. You know, he's in jail. He's not going to, I don't think he's going to get bond. I think the judge made that very clear that with the disregard for human life that he showed with his actions, he does not need to be free. And it's, it's the irony for me of he has colon cancer and he's walking around with a colostomy bag and,

Yet someone with mental health issues, you know, right, because physical health issues, mental health issues, they're all health issues. You know, she's not deserving of basic human decency, but he is. He should be able to go home with an ankle monitor because he has a colostomy. I don't care about your colostomy. I hope they use a Ziploc bag. No, it's irrelevant.

Well, I guess we'll just watch and see how this plays out. I don't, I think, you know, that we've got the video. I think even, you know, not to speak for that other police officer, but I know what you mean when you say that it felt as though the other police officer was just sort of like, oh, wait, we're pulling our, okay, we're pulling our weapon. You know, like, it definitely felt like a, like, I don't know what we're doing here, but there must be something bad. And it's as if

He was kind of like going through that. And he, cause you never hear anything like that from him. You never hear him arguing with her. You never hear him really feel like he was afraid. He didn't, you know, it's,

He just, you don't get that feeling from him. It all came from Grayson. And so I think there's probably going to be some testimony most likely coming from him, you know, at trial. There's no telling what else is going to come out, you know, and I just, you know, I guess we have a long, long way to go before all of this kind of plays out. I can only hope that the other officer, uh,

along with the rest of officers around the world, have learned from this in that if you see your partner doing something that doesn't make sense to you, maybe...

Maybe take a second, and I know a second probably wouldn't have been enough for him in this situation, but a second to say, wait, hold up and reevaluate what's happening. Because Sean's partner is probably the only person who could have stopped Sean from killing Sonia. So in that moment, he could have said, no, like stand down, put your gun down. We're not doing this. He had a very small window, but he still had that window. So I hope that if he continues to work

that he changes the way he practices and that his, you know, his...

The rest of the police force understands that this is that's the takeaway. Well, there's a lot of takeaways. Right. But the takeaway for the partner is if you see something that's that's not right, do something. Same thing with us when we're working in the hospital. If you see a colleague, a coworker doing something that you feel like is inappropriate, if you're turning a patient and you feel like the person on the other side of the bed is a little rough, right?

You know, like, whoa, say something. You have got to, if you're going to put yourself in that position, if you're going to put yourself in a position to carry a gun, to say you're going to protect and serve the community, you damn well better be willing to stand up and speak for the people that you're supposed to be protecting and serving against a co-worker who is not there, who, you know, has other interests.

Things in mind that don't have the best interest of the person of the public in mind. You have to just like it was nurses. We have to protect patients from other health care people who don't have the patient's best interest in mind. The police officers, this needs to all be a part of training. This should definitely we they need we need funding for police training all across the country to there needs to be a an awakening.

Of how to police. Absolutely. How to protect and serve. Exactly. Right. I mean, there has to be a complete overhaul, right? Because when we talk about how policing started, right, we're talking about, and I've said this before, police, you know, police were invented to keep people.

folks in check, to keep Black folks in check. And even after, you know, Reconstruction, when the slaves were freed, police officers were in charge of making sure that Black people were not encroaching on land that wasn't theirs, or they weren't malingering, or whatever. And if they were, then they'd get sent back to the plantation, right?

That's where policing started. And so because that's where it started, it has only grown from that. And so the entire tree needs to be dug up and pulled out of the ground by the roots. It needs to be redone.

Well, there's been too many times as for me as a nurse working in the hospital that I know that I've called security for one reason or another, or someone has called security and security comes. And the response from, and this is security, they're not police officers, but still, it's like, the response is way too aggressive, way too over the top, like,

Just the mindset. It's like, wait, I've heard horror stories of people who their child was having a mental health crisis and they didn't know what else to do. There's no resources in the state of Tennessee where I'm from.

You know, you don't just call and have so if if you have a teenage child, it's a child who's having a mental health crisis, that you're afraid they're going to hurt themselves or someone else and you call the police and they come maybe it's an autistic child. Maybe it's someone who's just like, like, they're not necessarily going to hurt someone, but they could hurt themselves like hitting them hitting their head against the pavement or something like that.

And the police come and they literally, like, they could kill them. Completely horror stories of things like this happening all over the country. And it's all a lack of training, a disregard for life, and a lack of understanding of mental health crises and how to de-escalate situations.

There was a documentary or a movie called 16 Shots, and it's the story about Laquan McDonald, who was having a mental health crisis and was shot 16 times. And so what you're talking about is so present, and it's painfully present in our country. The overuse of police force, the militarizing of our police forces, I mean, it's killing kids.

And Sonia Massey's mother knew that. And that's why in the days leading up to this happening, when she was trying to get help for her, she would say, please don't send someone who is racist. Don't send someone who's prejudiced. Please send someone who's going to, you know, that please don't hurt her. I mean, why would you have to ask that? Because you know, because you've been through this before, because you understand, you know. Right. Yeah.

Exactly. Well, this has been a really difficult story. I wanted to just hash it all the way through and talk about everything that has to do with it and bring awareness to this topic and keep talking about this. Wouldn't it be great if we reached a point that this was not an issue anymore and we just didn't have to talk about it anymore? That would be wonderful. That would be stunning. Stunning.

So I have to tell you guys about an experience I had with a nursing student. So you know, I've been doing travel nursing. Well, this hospital where I'm at has a lot of LPN students doing their clinicals there. So one of them was following me around one day, and she noticed my stethoscope. And of course, y'all know the Echo technology company that sponsors our podcast, they teamed up with Littman to make the stethoscopes to beat all stethoscopes, the 3M Littman core digital stethoscope. And this is the one that I use now. So she said, Oh my gosh, I've been wanting to try one of those. So

So of course I let her use it and she just could not stop talking about it for the rest of the shift. It was so cute. She was like, you know, I can't hear anything with my normal stethoscope because I have tinnitus. And so she was so excited because she could actually hear what heart sounds were supposed to sound like. She said, I'm going to ask for one of these for graduation. And I was like, yeah, you definitely should. So just so you know,

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I guess we can kind of move into the good nurse segment. What I wanted to do, though, is Brittany, you are the one that I knew about the story. I'd seen the story. So I knew about it. But you're the one that when I reached out and was like, hey, I haven't talked to you in a while come on the show. And you were like, I got to talk about this. And so I wanted to feature you just in the good nurse segment, just talk about what are you what are you up to? You are such an advocate. As I said at the beginning of the show, you're an author advocate. What's going on in your life these days?

You know, I'm back on the road. I just got back from Bainbridge Island. I went out there to do an hour talk at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, which was beautiful. Bainbridge Island was amazing. I've never been on a ferry before until yesterday, so that was pretty cool. And, you know, I had a very honest conversation. And

What stuck out to me with this crowd is that the majority of folks who attended, and it was a full room, which I was excited about and surprised about because it's a rather small city, island place.

Most of the folks who were there were over the age of 65 and white. There were two black people in the entire audience. Everyone else was white or white adjacent. And I was just overwhelmed with how well the audience received me and the conversations that we had. But

I am most thankful for the fact that I was able to share my perspective with people who are nothing like me, right? Some of them were queer and that's the only similarity that we share. But other than that, you know, these are the people that I'm trying to reach. The folks who don't, who truly don't understand my perspective because they can't, right? Because they're not me and they don't walk in my shoes.

So I'm traveling quite a bit this fall doing some keynote speeches. I'm going to be at Beloit College next month and University of Louisville in October, as well as Desk in the University. So I'll be all over the place.

And at the same time, I'm still working. I'm still finishing up my doctorate and working on some sickle cell stuff and improving the way that we care for our sickle cell patients when they come into the ER with pain, making sure that we're treating them objectively and promptly and that providers aren't given the opportunity to let their bias affect the way that they treat their patients. So those are all the things I'm working on right now.

I love it. And we've talked before about sickle cell on this podcast. We've talked about the importance of nurses to not, you know, to really fight against the biases that go along with our profession, where we see so much abuse of different types of prescription pain medications. It comes with the territory. You are going to see that. You're going to see people that struggle with substance use disorder if you work in a hospital, especially in an emergency department.

So you have to constantly be fighting against the natural tendency to get jaded against people like that. When in reality, if you could really try really hard to put yourself into the place of the thinker,

without thinking about the sickle cell person who's legitimately in an unbelievable amount. I can't, I don't understand that kind of pain. I think the closest I could come to it is like having childbirth or the time I had a kidney stone. And even then, I don't understand it. I've never felt it. But if you could like, forget that.

Forget, you know, like forget the fact that there's people, there are people who legitimately are hurting and you can't see it. And yes, they may be scrolling on their phone. They may not, you may not be able to see people get really good at masking their pain. Think about the person who is coming in there.

for just trying to get drugs because they are struggling with substance use disorder. Think about that person and what they are struggling with, what got them to that point. When did that start? Were they eight years old and their parents gave them some sort of drug to keep them intoxicated so that they could... This happens. It happens. I've got so many horror stories.

You don't know what that person's been through, where they've come from, that they have to come into the emergency room and deal with you and your attitude and ask for and try to manipulate the system into getting drugs. So if you could start there and develop some compassion and empathy for somebody who is literally, even if they're lying,

If you could develop compassion and empathy for that person, then work your way, you know, then you're, you're, you're okay. You know, like then you're going to automatically have that compassion and empathy for people who really are. Assume, assume they're telling the truth. I don't care if you know they have a history or whatever. Assume if they say they're in pain, they're in pain. It's not your job to police that. Do your job.

You know, try to be objective and have compassion and empathy. If you can't do that, honestly, it might be time to step away. That's exactly right. I couldn't have said it better.

Well, Brittany, thank you so much for coming back on the show and discussing this really, really difficult story. I could not, there was, there would literally be no one else in the whole world that would have been better to have this conversation with your insight, your wisdom, just your perspective. It's absolutely invaluable. And I just really appreciate you.

Thank you, Tina. And just know how much I appreciate you using your platform and your privilege to uplift oppressed people and oppressed groups. It really does...

mean everything to me. So thank you. Absolutely. If you want to reach out to me, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me an email at Tina at goodnursebadnurse.com. And we're on social media at Good Nurse, Bad Nurse. And our website is goodnursebadnurse.com. I always love to hear from you guys. And before we leave, I always have to remind you, even if you're a bad girl or a bad boy, just whoever you are, be a good nurse.