Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson who killed an unarmed Black woman, Sonya Massey, on July 6 in Woodside Township near Springfield, Illinois, had a dark history, but was hired anyway by six police departments in the state, reports CNN:
After being discharged from the Army for serious misconduct and a history of driving under the influence, Grayson was employed since 2020 by six Illinois law enforcement agencies – at three of them, as a part-time officer, employment records show.
Grayson is part of what law enforcement officials and experts call America’s legion of “wandering officers” who drift from police department to police department – sometimes even after having been fired, forced to resign or convicted of a crime…
The absence of an exhaustive, national database for tracking and weeding out rogue cops – along with a lack of coordination among the more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the country – has allowed officers like Grayson to get hired without their checkered histories sounding an alarm, according to policing officials and experts.
The Illinois State Police released body cam video of Grayson shooting the 36-year-old woman for taking some hot water off her stove. Grayson was fired and charged with murder, notes CNN:
Grayson, 30, was indicted by a grand jury on three counts of first-degree murder and one count each of aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty and was denied pretrial release, according to court records…
Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell fired Grayson after the shooting, saying in a statement: “Sonya Massey lost her life due to an unjustifiable and reckless decision by former Deputy Sean Grayson.”
(Sources: CNN, WAHS/YouTube)