DALLAS — A newly released body camera video has the nation’s attention focused on 36-year-old Sonya Massey, a black woman killed by Illinois sheriff’s deputies in her home.
“We have been taught to believe that the police keep us safe,” said Tiara Cooper. “Yet we are treated as a threat.”
Cooper is the director of In Defense of Black Lives Dallas, she watched the footage and she’s angry.
“The very people that we have been taught to call are those who have been attacking us,” Cooper said.
It’s why she and a host of North Texas community activists wanted to talk Wednesday because each time a new video is released of a black person being killed at the hands of police, it opens old wounds.
Old wounds like Botham Jean being gunned down by an off-duty officer in his Dallas apartment back in 2018.
And then Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed by a Fort Worth officer in her home the following year.
“I'm sick of putting hashtags in front of somebody else's baby's name,” said Next Generation Action Network President Dominique Alexander.
And they’re feeling the same pain even though this latest shooting was in Springfield, Illinois, more than 700 miles away.
“It was clear in the video that this officer cared less,” said Alexander.
The body cam footage is mind-boggling even for James Hawthorne, the police chief at Cedar Hill ISD.
“It was probably the most egregious use of force that I've probably ever witnessed that didn't appear to be any provocation on the part of the victim who was shot,” Chief Hawthorne said.
In the video of the July 6 incident, we see Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson and another deputy speaking with 36-year-old Sonya Massey outside her home, after she called 911 about a possible prowler.
The footage shows the deputies following her inside and asking for an ID. Grayson then tells her to remove a pot of hot water from the stove.
Moments later he demands that she drop the water. She apologizes and ducks before Grayson shoots her three times, including once to the head.
“I could see no justification at all for anything that happened there,” Chief Hawthorne said. “It was just an awful incident and awful representation of the men and women that serve in law enforcement.”
Grayson was fired last week and indicted for first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm, and official misconduct.
He has pleaded not guilty.
“We cannot just continue to fire one police officer and another police officer and they continue to kill black people,” Cooper said.
Activists in North Texas are looking for solutions so their old wounds can finally heal.