Sonya Massey Should Still Be Alive. What Can Be Done to Save Other Black Disabled People?

Sonya Massey was a 36-year-old Black woman dealing with a mental health crisis. Instead of being offered help by the sheriff’s deputies who had been dispatched to her home to investigate a potential intruder, she was shot dead.

After a video clip of Massey’s murder on July 6 was released, it was not immediately known to the public that she was dealing with a mental health crisis at the time of her death. What viewers saw, however, was that Massey was killed just after doing precisely what the responding officers had asked her to do—remove a pot of boiling water from her stove.

Deputy Sean Grayson has since been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm, and official misconduct in relation to Massey’s killing. In a field case report following the shooting, Grayson said that he shot Massey because he feared that she was going to use the pot of boiling water to harm him and the other officer.

Massey died at the same hospital as one of her ancestors, William K. Donnegan—a shoemaker and conductor on the Underground Railroad who was lynched by a White mob during the Springfield Race Riot in 1908.

In the bodycam footage, after the other deputy steps back from the “hot steaming water,” Massey responds by saying, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”

Though Grayson said he viewed these words as a threat, in the wake of Massey’s killing, many have cited it as yet another deadly example of a Black person being misperceived as dangerous.

In a story published in Harper’s Bazaar, poet Aricka Foreman reflects on the many times she’s heard the phrase Massey used leading up to her killing. Foreman notes that it’s commonly uttered in Black Christian homes. Foreman says that she’s heard this preached from the pulpit since she was a child and has heard her mother utter it in moments where she’s offering reassurance. As she notes, it is also a phrase that has come to be used in moments of joy or in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“I heard a bevy of phrases Sonya Massey used, many of them tinged with levity. Women are socialized to make light or lean into that nervous laughter—the path of least resistance that leads us home alive,” Foreman writes.

Of course, ultimately, Massey lost her life that night. As a Black person in America, she was already vulnerable. Massey died at the same hospital as one of her ancestors, William K. Donnegan—a shoemaker and conductor on the Underground Railroad who was lynched by a White mob during the Springfield Race Riot in 1908. Just months before her death, Massey’s four-year-old cousin was shot and killed by a police officer after being used as a human shield by the intended target. Black women are six times more likely than White women to be killed by homicides, including police shootings.

On the night of her death, Massey was marginalized because of her race and gender, and because she lived with a mental health disability. As the Urban Institute notes, “Having a disability—a term that encompasses physical, psychological, and learning differences can raise a person’s risk of having a violent encounter with police.”

The Need for Alternative Response Programs

“Having a disability—a term that encompasses physical, psychological, and learning differences can raise a person’s risk of having a violent encounter with police.”

In the two weeks leading up to the shooting, Massey had spoken with members of a mobile crisis team at least three times. On the day prior to her shooting, after speaking with mental health professionals, Massey’s mother, Donna, called 911, alerting them that her daughter was having a mental breakdown but wasn’t dangerous, noting that she herself was afraid of the police because “sometimes they make the situation worse.” Donna pleaded for the 911 dispatcher not to send “any combative police who are prejudiced.” The next day, however, Massey was shot dead by Grayson just 30 minutes after she had placed a 911 call asking for help with a potential intruder.

The Ruderman Family Foundation, a disability research organization, found that almost half of people killed by police have some type of disability. The report analyzed police killings between 2013 and 2015. The authors of the report, historian David Perry and disability expert Lawrence Carter-Long, noted that “police have become the default responders to mental health calls.” Often, they note, during police interactions, people with psychiatric disabilities are presumed to be dangerous to themselves and others.

Sheriff Jack Campbell of Sangamon County has admitted that the department failed Massey. Prior to Massey’s killing, Grayson had been discharged from the Army for misconduct. Campbell also acknowledged that he knew Grayson had worked at six different police departments over just four years and had been charged with two DUI offenses since 2015. Campbell hired Grayson anyway. After receiving extensive criticism for Grayson’s hiring, Campbell has since retired.

According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), “Officers are not expected to diagnose mental or emotional conditions, but rather to recognize behaviors that are potentially indicative” of someone experiencing a crisis. Too often, however, that is not the case.

They are committed to fighting for others to get what Massey needed: care, not police violence.

In the wake of Massey’s killing, there is renewed urgency for alternative response programs. Eugene, OR, is the home of one of the most well-known of these programs, Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS). First launched in 1989, CAHOOTS reroutes 911 and nonemergency calls related to mental health, substance use, or homelessness. Instead of police, trained crisis-care workers and medics respond to these calls. The program receives 24,000 calls a year, with 17 percent of Eugene police calls being redirected to CAHOOTS.

In a New York Times essay, Tahir Duckett, a civil rights lawyer, activist, and the executive director of Georgetown Law’s Center for Innovations in Community Safety, noted that in recent years similar programs have been initiated in places like Albuquerque, NM; Durham, NC; and Denver, CO.

In Durham, the program known as HEART (Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Team) was born out of the organizing efforts of groups like Durham Beyond Policing and Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), who strongly opposed the then-police chief’s plan to expand the police force.

At a vigil for Massey in Durham on August 5, many advocating for the HEART program were present to mourn her loss. The sentiment at the vigil was clear: “Sonya Massey should still be alive.”

Many reflected on seeing themselves in Massey because they are around the same age or they know what it’s like to struggle with a mental health condition. They are committed to fighting for others to get what Massey needed: care, not police violence.