Shot in cold blood: Sonya Massey

[PPQ_Purple]

Honestly I do not understand why americans put up with their police being so militarized and so willing to use firearms. I am dead serious when I say that last time we had things that bad over here they were speaking German. And even than we most certainly did not put up with it silently.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

You're in a street level arms race so cops are scared and then the public is scared of them.

Have a look at policing where everyone is not armed.

Backwards but otherwise correct: the people arms themselves because they're scared of the government.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I do like that the murderer said "the water was also near our feet". Boiling water, even if it was near his booted feet, wouldn't magically dissolve his legs.
It's ironic how the victim thought to make a joke, that she'd baptize them with the water, and that joke cost her her life.

She didn't make a joke.

They told her to turn off the water. Just turning off the burner wouldn't have magically made it stop boiling. You actually have to move the pot off the burner, which is what she tried to do.

Then the cop told her to "drop the pot" - a very dumb order. Then the cop started swearing at her and said he would shoot her in the face. According to the article I read, she said, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus."

The cop didn't like that, and shot her.

So she tried to comply with what they ordered her to do. They murdered her anyway.

Not sure why they were there in the first place. The article mentioned a prowler, but I saw no prowler in the footage.

 

[Farm Boy]

He's going to get a cage. Hopefully for one of those ridiculously long sentences people boggle at in other countries(but they might just kill him in there, oh well). A high price to have paid to get an animal off the street.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Not sure why they were there in the first place. The article mentioned a prowler, but I saw no prowler in the footage.

The woman called them, she thought there was an intruder

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So she thought there was a prowler, they come, order her to deal with the boiling water, she tries, they get paranoid, threaten her, she doesn't appreciate that, so they kill her.

And then the cops wonder why nobody trusts them.

 

[red_elk]

The "rebuke" was a joke as far as I understood. Before that there was casual conversation, no tensions at all.
Next second they just went mad for no apparent reason.

 

[Core Imposter]

Massey’s father, James Wilburn, said he initially received conflicting information from law enforcement. “I was under the impression that a prowler had broken in and killed my baby. Never did they say that it was a deputy-involved shooting until my brother read it on the internet,” Wilburn said at the news conference.
“We were led to believe that the intruder – or someone from the neighborhood – may have killed her. We were absolutely shocked to find out that it was a deputy who shot her,” Wilburn told CNN’s Laura Coates on Monday night.
“You’re used to having ‘the talk’ with boys, but now I guess we have to talk to our girls about … their interactions with the police,” Wilburn said. Wilburn said that his daughter’s death had left him heartbroken.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/22/us/sonya-massey-police-shooting/index.html?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_msn

But for the bodycam...

 

[E.man]

I see very few of your crazy police incidents here in Oz but see some of your news.

Over and over again of over reacting, often with lethal results. It's not new. Gil Scott-Heron was singing about it decades ago.

Symptomatic of the society.

 

[Core Imposter]

Grayson worked with 6 agencies over the past 4 years, three times charged with DUI, twice guilty (2015-16).

 

[Core Imposter]

The body-camera footage shows Grayson and another deputy speaking calmly with Massey in her home – at which point she goes to the stove to turn off a pot of boiling water. She then picks up the pot and the other deputy steps back, “away from your hot steaming water,” he says. “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” she says in response. “Huh?” the deputy says. “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” she repeats. “You better f**king not or I swear to God I’ll f**king shoot you in the f**king face,” Grayson says. He then draws his firearm and points it at her, and she ducks and says, “I’m sorry” while lifting the pot, the video shows.
“Drop the f**king pot!” both deputies yell. Three shots are heard. After a few seconds of silence, one deputy says, “shots fired” and calls for emergency medical services.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/24/us/sean-grayson-illinois-police-officer-shooting-sonya-massey/index.html

 

[Narz]

Grayson worked with 6 agencies over the past 4 years, three times charged with DUI, twice guilty (2015-16).

How could someone w even one DUI be put in charge of public safety

 

[Kaitzilla]

I didn't get it. They freaked out just because she was approaching them with a pot of boiling water, or I'm missing something?

The police went from joking to lethal-force-hostile in 2 seconds.

She took the boiling water to the sink and the cops backed up a step.

She said "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus"

I can only imagine she was teasing with joke or chiding them with displeasure, but one cop took it to mean she was threatening to throw boiling water at him?

A cultural misunderstanding I guess.

Then she ducked down because of the gun.
She cried out "I'm sorry!"
She tried to shield herself with the pot?

Dropping a pot of boiling water is difficult to do without it splashing everywhere!


It is about as bad as a cop asking for insurance and registration, the person reaches into the glove box, and the cop shoots them.
Or the cop asking for ID, a person reaches into their pocket to get it, and the cop shoots them.

They police as if they are soldiers in a war zone.

Probably a murder conviction for the cop.

 

[red_elk]

That's what I thought too. Looks like she didn't do anything wrong, may be just acting a bit weird.
The cops are idiots and should go to jail for a long time.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's not unlikely. Yet if one is dumb enough to think either that he was at risk of being burned (from far away) by boiling water, OR dumb enough to think this would be an awesome excuse to murder a black person, are we sure they wouldn't do the same to a white person? Beyond a degree of dumb, the usual racism bonus for murderers might not factor substantially.
Impressive how your grasp of reality can be so tenuous that you can't imagine the pot would require propelling to have the water reach you - and you'd have more than enough time to get out of the way.
(the above is unrelated to the girl obviously never meaning to throw water at them, since she was only joking when she said she "rebukes them in the name of Jesus")

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

That's really bad.

Need to make fewer things illegal so you need fewer cops. Then you can have higher standards.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

The "rebuke" was a joke as far as I understood. Before that there was casual conversation, no tensions at all.
Next second they just went mad for no apparent reason.

I can only imagine she was teasing with joke or chiding them with displeasure, but one cop took it to mean she was threatening to throw boiling water at him?

A cultural misunderstanding I guess.

According to the Guardian quoting her daughter she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia (which could be the reason for the false intruder alert). I don't think she was making a joke or threatening to throw boiling water..

I don't know what's there left to say, it's a very sad case, and it makes me very angry. The news in recent years has left me jaded and cold, but something about this case the pathos of it all just makes me incandescent with rage

 

[Core Imposter]

There are some Christians who will use the phrase "rebuke you in the name of Jesus" if you say anything about a negative event. For example, if you say, "the wind is blowing hard enough to topple that tree by the driveway", they may say, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus". This is connected, I think, to the word of faith movement. He had said something about, "not needing a fire while they were there". If would have been a delayed response but otherwise not unusual in the standard way of speaking for this subset of people.

There also a lot of non-Christian people who believe that positive or negative vocalizations can shape events and I have known a few who routinely counter negative statements.

This is the best idea I can come up with to explain her comments. I have no idea what he heard that he could have construed as a threat. I can't see anything in her movements that look threatening. At the last moment there when she moves her hands up, she has a red potholder in them. She may have dropped the pot, I cannot say. From what I saw she was moving in a defensive position before the shot was fired.

If I were defending him, I would want to find a way to have his hearing checked. If he can't use bad hearing as a defense just about all I can think of is for him to plead possessed. "The demon inside of me didn't like the mention of Jesus." Nearly inexplicable behavior.

 

[Birdjaguar]

1st degree murder charges are in order.

 

[Kaitzilla]

If I were defending him, I would want to find a way to have his hearing checked. If he can't use bad hearing as a defense just about all I can think of is for him to plead possessed. "The demon inside of me didn't like the mention of Jesus." Nearly inexplicable behavior.

If they can swing the "possessed by demons" defense, that is 5 years with good behavior.

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