New body camera footage released by the Illinois State Police shows officers shooting and killing an unarmed Black woman in her home after she called for help about a possible intruder.
In the United States, where police shootings of minorities have become painfully common and polarizing events, the killing has drawn national attention, with President Joe Biden saying that Sonya Massey “should have been alive today.”
So far a police officer involved in the case has been charged with murder.
According to the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, Massey, 36, called 911 to report a possible intruder in her home, and police arrived just after midnight on July 6.
Video footage released Monday showed Massey speaking to two officers in her home while they asked her for identification and searched for documents.
The sheriff’s deputy then tells him to check the pot of boiling water on his stove, adding, “While we’re here, we don’t need a fire.”
When one deputy backs away, Massey asks him why, and he laughingly replies: “Away from your hot steaming water.”
Holding the pot, Massey calmly responded “Oh, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus” — prompting a deputy to respond “You’re no better. I swear to God I’ll shoot you in the face,” and draw his weapon.
Massey hides behind the counter, apologizing, and the officers yell “Fuck off, drop the weed.” They then come around the corner of the counter and open fire.
In the aftermath, one official said they were afraid of “having boiling water poured over their heads”.
Officer Sean Grayson, who is white, has been charged with murder.
Biden on Monday called Massie “a beloved mother, friend, daughter and young Black woman.”
“When we call for help, all of us Americans — no matter who we are or where we live — should be able to do so without fearing for our lives,” he said in a statement.
Ben Crump, the high-profile civil rights attorney representing Massey’s family, called it “the worst video of a police shooting ever.”
Police shootings and brutality — particularly incidents of violence between whites and blacks in a country with a long history of discrimination — often draw outrage and protests in the United States, as well as defense and resistance from staunch supporters of the police.
America’s decentralised policing system, where individual cities and counties are responsible for their own policing, means there are no national training requirements and this makes reform extremely difficult.
Adding to the complexity, there are more guns than people in the United States, meaning police often have to train for violent encounters with the general public.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
