Sonya Massey: Are police finally being held accountable?

It's wild to think that so many people don't accept that police brutality exists. We see it almost every day. Every time there is an instance of it, excuses are always made. However, in the case of Ms. Sonya Massey, there really is no way to defend it. Luckily, it seems no one with any knowledge or authority on the matter is trying to. Fox's News' headline of "Bodycam video reveals chaotic scene of deputy fatally shooting Sonya Massey, who called 911 for help" could wrongfully lead those only reading the headline to think it was justified. However, further in the article they then talk about how the officer was never in any serious danger.

My concern, is that there are supposed to be safeguards to prevent a situation like this from happening in the first place.

• There is no point to body cams if they aren't turned on. Thankfully we know exactly what happened here due to one officer turning his camera on. But Grayson, the cop that shot her, didn't turn his on until AFTER.

  My question is how often do cops leave their cameras off? Assuming this call went as it should have and everyone left peacefully, would there have been any ramifications for Grayson for leaving his camera off? Of course there is always going to be some level of human error, but when you're in a job as critical as a police officer, even small cases like forgetting to turn a camera on before a traffic stop where everyone is fine, needs some kind of repercussion. It needs to be clear that body cams being off is completely unacceptable because you never know when there will be an issue.

  
  
  
  

• Secondly, there are reasons why cops are supposed to have partners. One of those reasons is to protect civilians from each other. In fact, the Code of Conduct for Springfield IL Police states that "Failure to intervene in circumstances where unreasonable force is being used" is an example of neglecting duty (Rule 11.A.2). Additionally, a Use of Force rule states, "All members have the affirmative duty to intervene to prevent or stop any unreasonable force being used by another

  officer whenever it is safe and reasonable to do so." While the focus is completely on Grayson, what did the other officer do? It's hard to completely tell. He didn't stop Grayson when he yelled he would shoot her in the face. There was a moment when he could have saved Ms. Massey, and instead his hand goes to his body cam and then pulls out his gun. As a cop, it's his duty to stop the innocent from getting shot. There shouldn't have been any doubt of her innocence in that moment and there was roughly 4 seconds of threatening her followed by roughly another 4 seconds with the gun out. Plenty of time for this cop to do his duty and save her life.

Lastly, we need to be paying more attention to the last things that happened. Cops are required to provide aid if necessary after using force. Not only did neither officer do this for 2 minutes, but when they did, Grayson tried to dissuade the other officer from providing this aid. At the time he probably assumed she was already dead, and while that's not an unreasonable assumption, he should have first checked as she was still alive. He showed an utter disregard for the life he just took. Something departments should be on the lookout for much more proactively.

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Sadly, with Ms. Massey being murdered, it would logically follow that if she had chosen to defend herself, she would have had the right of self defense. However, due to being murdered by a cop, if she had defended herself, potentially saving her own life, everyone just would have said the shooting was justified.