What Went Wrong in the Sonya Massey Shooting? Policing Expert Explains

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, HOST: Now, we return to the U.S., which once again has been shaken by the shooting of an unarmed black woman by police. Last month, Sonya Massey called 911 for help with a suspected prowler only to be shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy inside her own home. In conversation with Hari Sreenivasan, co-founder and president of the Center for Policing Equity, Dr. Tracie Keesee discusses what went wrong and what local law enforcement can do to better protect the communities they serve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, thanks. Dr. Tracie Keesee, thanks so much for joining us. A few days ago, the nation, I think, was rightfully shocked in the body camera footage that showed the last moments of Sonya Massey’s life. She was a woman who had called the police for help and she ended up getting shot by one of the very officers who was there to help her. The officer has since pleaded not guilty because he’s been fired and he’s been charged with one count of aggravated battery with a firearm, official misconduct, and three counts of first-degree murder. A grand jury felt there was enough evidence to bring these charges. Now, his side has not said anything about this. You have seen that footage. What did you think when you saw it and what went wrong?

DR. TRACIE L. KEESEE, CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR POLICING EQUITY: First of all, thank you for having me, Hari. And I would tell you, you know, just in our little bit of conversation before getting started, the trauma of having to watch these videos, as you mentioned, never goes away. But I think what was very striking about it is that here you have a woman, and let’s be clear, a black woman that has called 911 asking for help, hearing things outside of the home, where you have deputies actually who are on scene and have searched around the home and are literally talking to her about that they didn’t find anything and asking if she was OK, does she need anything else, and she says no. And then, of course, you have the deputy in question, a Deputy Grayson, I believe it is, that comes in. And you know, ask again, you know, what else is happening? Asks for her I.D. Her I.D. is inside the house inside her purse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your last name? Should not think much last name. You’re not in trouble. I see —

SONYA MASSEY: Massey. Massey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have an I.D.? That make things so much easier.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DR. KEESEE: And in doing so, everyone else is pretty much, you know, looking around and you can tell that, you know, there are questions happening, but for most of all, that interaction is going well. And those deputies are about to wrap it up because they’re saying there’s nothing else that we can do. We haven’t found anyone. And so, the asking for the I.D. — again, there’s nothing wrong with making sure that this is the person who called it, that this is the person you’re talking to. But what goes really horribly wrong is, of course, we have a pot of boiling water on the stove. No one else seems to be concerned about it as she’s turning it off. And then, she begins to utter statements. And statements, of course, that aren’t congruent with someone who may be tracking (ph). We know that she has mental health issues because she’s asked early on had she been taking her medications and she acknowledges that she took everything. And then it begins not to track. And then, what you see happen very quickly is an escalation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASSEY: What are you (INAUDIBLE)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Huh?

MASSEY: What are you going?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With hot steaming water —

MASSEY: Run away from my hot steaming water?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MASSEY: Oh, I would refuse to (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Huh?

MASSEY: I would refuse (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You better (INAUDIBLE) not — face.

MASSEY: OK. I’m sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop the — drop the — drop the pot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DR. KEESEE: And then immediately you hear gunfire. And of course, you see — if you’ve watched the video, you see Ms. Massey fall to the ground who’s already on her way down. You also watch one deputy begin to render aid immediately. And the sheriff that actually shot her does nothing. In fact, you hear the comments on the video. That he basically states that she’s not worth saving or that she can’t be saved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m going to go get my kit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She’s done. You can go get it, but that’s a headshot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DR. KEESEE: And so, you watch this interaction and you watch as an officer, and you think about what are the things that you really should be doing there. One, you don’t escalate a situation, and we all know that. And this is 2024, and very rarely will you find law enforcement agencies and sheriff’s departments who have not gone through some level of de-escalation training. In addition, you will very rarely — and I’m not going to say that every agency has done this, but you will find that mental health training has also happened. I meant that you recognize when things are happening where you are going to need to do something a little different in your approach when you are with someone who may be in crisis or who may not be tracking. You didn’t see any of that. You didn’t see anyone — you know, this particular person backing up to get distance between them. And so, this is what is so shocking and heartbreaking, but I will tell you, this is not new. This is what the black community has consistently, since George Floyd and before that, have been talking about. And the dangers of calling 911. And when we talk about what does it mean to be safe in your home, or how do you get safety? These are the questions and the concerns that are continually at the top of the conversations and top of the policy discussions that continue to happen.

SREENIVASAN: You know, when you discuss the distrust that exists within members of the black community in reaching out to the police for help, I mean, look, Sonya Massey’s father told CBS News after that they felt misled by the police department before the body camera footage was released, because there was a narrative that she either died by an intruder or a self-inflicted wound. I mean, what do you think about that family statement there?

DR. KEESEE: I mean, it’s a powerful statement, right? So, it not only undergirds the longstanding issues about trusting law enforcement, but it’s also about this technology. We talk about body worn cameras, right? So, we have to talk about the introduction of body worn cameras. Because historically now — you know, when I came in 1989, there was nothing about a body worn camera. And so, you know, I mentioned to you, the first sort of iteration of that for me would have been Rodney King, and that was caught on, you know, a video camera, very — now, which should be called a very outdated video camera, but it was very grainy, but you could still see, right? So, you would have the word of the officers and then nothing else, right? So, if the person died or was not able to speak for themselves, that’s what you would have. But what her father is talking about is the inability to come forth in a very honest way about what really happened. And without the camera, without the body worn camera footage, we may have never known. And now, that we have seen what happens, we know the narrative doesn’t hold up. And with that, we then now need to have and understand why things unfold as the way that they did. And this is also what we call a portion of this is accountability, right? Without that, you don’t get to — you don’t begin to have it, or in some cases, you don’t begin to have what people would say justice, depending on how you define that. But what’s also interesting is if you think about this, and we talk about when do we really get into reform conversations, and in my career, it’s been going on for decades, but when we talk about reforms, one of the things that have been coming up or had come up was body worn cameras. And the conversation around body worn cameras is really about, well, this is the thing that’s going to make it right. So, this particular piece of technology is going to be able to build trust within the community. And we know that there are a lot of things that happen when we talk about the ability to release the footage, the policies around it. If I remember correctly, I don’t believe Sheriff Grayson turned his camera on. So, if it wasn’t for another sheriff who was on scene, we would not have gotten that footage.

SREENIVASAN: There was a mental health component to this specific case with Ms. Massey. But I also wonder, given your expertise, what kinds of training are officers now getting in departments that choose to invest the time in this?

DR. KEESEE: Well, it varies. Of course, it’s going to depend on where you are or how large the agency is, whether or not you’re a sheriff’s agency, and whether or not you have a budget. I think communities would be very surprised about the lack of the training budget that most law enforcement have. In some cases, it’s not even a line item. And so, a lot of what you will see is there will be critical incident training. You will hear it named CIT. You’ll hear mental aid — mental health first aid. That is really basic understanding of how people who are in crisis show up. What types of mental health, what does it look like. And often times, you can look at your own family members and friends and see some of those same things that are happening with them. And some of it is very basic level, and that’s a lot of times what you need. A lot of academy curriculums have already been changed to incorporate those types of things, including the scenario training that you have. So, it would not have been uncommon to have a scenario-based training with an event sort of like Ms. Massey’s, where you did have a conversation with her. And you have — if you do have the resources, the ability to call someone else in to help with her, to see if there’s anything else you could do. And at that time, law enforcement would back out. But there are plenty of trainings now, and it’s really interesting that in this day and age, and it would be very uncommon to not have some basic level of mental health training. I would be surprised if a lot of agencies did not have. And then, I would add to that is before we even get to calling 911, does the person have or had everything that they needed before you begin to call law enforcement? And this is the thing that community and even law enforcement is talking about. Oftentimes those calls will come in, and we know 4 percent of 911 calls are what we call true crime calls. The rest of those are social needs. And the question is, why would you have law enforcement showing up for someone who has social needs? And that has been an ongoing conversation. I know, even when I was in law enforcement, that do you have the right people showing up for the right thing?

SREENIVASAN: Is there a difference in either the training or well, the outcomes of how police approach women?

DR. KEESEE: You know, there is. And what’s interesting is one of the things that we have to understand is we still have a lot of gender dynamics when it comes to how men believe women will respond or show up. A lot of those things have changed in the training. And when we talk about the dangerousness and who is a danger, what is interesting when you are talking about — and we have these conversations around what the science says, especially when we’re talking about black women and black men who are in danger. And we talk about how quickly folks respond, because when you associate blackness with criminality, it changes the way that you respond. And so, the types of training that we’re talking about in the academy, it’s just that, and you’ll hear conversations around not just implicit bias training, but understanding culturally how policing has been introduced into different neighborhoods, and for you to have a self-awareness around how you may show up, how you may perceive things, and in order to do that, you have to slow yourself down, and you have to make sure you have all the information that you need in order to go into that space, and you also need to make sure you have all the resources that you need. But I think also more importantly, you also want to make sure that you have and you’re recruiting the right people to be in the profession. And one of the things that we always talk about is who is attracted to the job and who should be in the job.

SREENIVASAN: You know, in the case of Sean Grayson, the officer, according to CNN, he had two previous DUIs. He worked at six agencies in four years. You know, he was told that he needed a high stress decision class, was discharged from the army for a serious offense. The county sheriff’s office said that they did not — they did know about his two DUI arrests, but he was still certified for hire by the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. I mean, how is it possible that we have so many kind of cracks in the system that were designed to catch people who shouldn’t be given this power to wield a weapon and ultimately, be able to take a life?

DR. KEESEE: It’s a great question, right? How many more flags did you need on him? So, you mentioned, right, so there’s Police Officer Standard Training. A lot of states have them and some don’t, and that’s typically the certifying arm of a state, a locality that gives you your certification as a police officer. And one of the things that has not really been done is a real good examination of those post boards, is what we call them. Often the police officers and standard training boards are comprised of solely law enforcement officers or retired officers. Very rarely are they comprised of community members. And looking at those policies that trigger when officers cannot be hired or transferred, as we talked about the George Floyd Act, right, having a database that flags for you officers who may maybe been hired multiple times to have these flags, would the sheriff have been caught in that particular database? We don’t know, but that is exactly what we’re talking about. But to your point, the question then now goes, we need to go back and look at what happened. Why was this person eligible to be hired, right?

SREENIVASAN: Yes.

DR. KEESEE: So, you cannot now go back and say, we should have known, but some of this also should have been in a background investigation. You also have a responsibility to make sure that someone like this is not in a profession that it is a high risk and, in a position, where you may should not be.

SREENIVASAN: The police union just released a statement saying that they are not going to fight the firing of the sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot Sonya Massey. How important is that?

DR. KEESEE: Well, it’s important because a few days ago, they were demanding that person be reinstated, if I remember correctly. They were saying that his due process rights were not followed and they were demanding his full reinstatement with back pay. But it’s important for unions to do exactly what they’ve done. I don’t know what has created the turn of that. But when you look at the body worn camera and you see what has happened, you understand why this person should no longer be in law enforcement. And it’s important to understand that the black community sees this. I mean, you see unions — and believe me, a lot of folks belong to unions. But when you see a union trying to protect something like this, you then — if you don’t understand why the black community has a lack of trust, then I have to say that there’s a real disconnect between unions and what they are supposed to be doing on behalf of officers. We understand — I belonged to unions for my entire career. And the one thing that I would always want is to have my rights protected. But I also know that when I violated someone’s rights, or when I was wrong, that there was going to be a level of accountability there. And this was before body worn cameras. And now, when you have body worn cameras, and if I’m an at- will employee, I understand as an at-will employee, that I may be terminated. And I think that whatever about face they’ve taken, it is glad to see that. But again, it’s those types of the original statement that they had is the reason why the ongoing issues in the community continue, and it gets exacerbated.

SREENIVASAN: How do you make sure that the police force reflects the community that they serve? I mean, I’m not just saying by race, I’m talking also by gender, by class, by a connection so that they’re able to have a life experience when they walk into unknown situations that the whole situation might benefit from.

DR. KEESEE: If you want the organization to reflect the community it serves, first, the organization itself needs to be healthy. And that means that when you are trying to recruit diverse organization to your point versus not just about race, and it’s about thought and it’s about experience. The other part of this, too, is understanding broader society has had a different lived experience when it comes to its interaction with policing. That requires law enforcement to decenter itself from what is happening out in the larger community. And in order to do that, that means that you have to step outside of yourself to understand that although you may be trying to do a good service, and though you may be trying not to do harm, harm has been done, although it may not have been done by you. And you’ll hear law enforcement now saying it’s very difficult for them to recruit because of what is being said. And what is being said about law enforcement is not new, what is new is that you’ve got social media and you’ve got it happening faster and quicker. And so, the ability to recruit has been happening for decades. It’s just been exacerbated. But until those things are truly addressed, including the attitudes of folks inside organizations and in the community. So, I don’t want you to think this is just about law enforcement. When I made the decision to go into law enforcement, I struggled in my own community about that choice itself. And so, when those things begin to align and we begin to address the conversation we’ve had here, the long-standing issues of how safety is delivered, then you will not see a lot of those hurdles.

SREENIVASAN: Dr. Tracie Keesee, the co-founder, president and CEO of the Center of Policing Equity, thanks so much for joining us.

DR. KEESEE: Thank you so much. I appreciate that.