$10 Million Settlement With Sangamon County for the Family of Sonya Massey, Shot in Her Kitchen After Calling 911 for Help

In the early morning of July 6, 2024, Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black mother of two who had been struggling with her mental health, called 911 to report a possible prowler outside her home near Springfield, Illinois. Two Sangamon County sheriff's deputies responded. What began as a calm interaction inside her home turned deadly over a pot of hot water on her stove: after Massey said "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus," Deputy Sean Grayson threatened to shoot her in the face, drew his pistol, and fired three times, striking her below the eye. His own body camera, which he activated only after the shooting, though his partner's captured the encounter, became the case's central evidence.

The footage, released weeks later, produced national outrage and comment from the sitting president. It also exposed a hiring failure: Grayson had worked for six law-enforcement agencies in four years and had a record that included DUI convictions, yet the sheriff's office had hired him anyway. He was fired, indicted for first-degree murder, and the county's sheriff resigned under pressure.

Massey's family retained Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci of Romanucci & Blandin, the same pairing that had led the George Floyd civil case, to pursue the county. The legal team pressed both for compensation and for structural change in how the county screens and hires deputies, while the U.S. Department of Justice opened an inquiry that led to an agreement with the sheriff's office on hiring and training reforms.

The civil claims resolved without a lawsuit going to trial. On February 11, 2025, the Sangamon County Board voted to approve a $10 million settlement with Massey's estate, and a judge subsequently gave the deal final approval. Announcing the agreement, Crump called it historic, by far the largest settlement ever reached in Sangamon County of any kind, let alone in a civil rights case, while stressing that the money was only the first step in the family's pursuit of justice, with the criminal prosecution of Grayson still ahead.

The Massey settlement showed the Crump-Romanucci playbook operating at the county level: swift retention, relentless public pressure around the body-camera footage, and a resolution in seven months that spared the family years of litigation while forcing a mid-sized county to confront the hiring practices that had put a deputy with Grayson's record at Massey's door.