Crump, Benjamin L

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    Illinois Sheriff’s Deputy Charged in Death of Sonya Massey

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    The deputy, Sean Grayson, has since been fired. A review of the investigation did not find the use of deadly force “justified.”A grand jury in Illinois charged a sheriff’s deputy with murder on Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a 36-year-old woman who called the police over concerns about a prowler.Sean Grayson, a sheriff’s deputy with the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in Springfield, Ill., faces three counts of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct in the death of the woman, Sonya Massey, according to a news release from the Sangamon County State’s Attorney’s Office.The case was first evaluated under Illinois law for the use of deadly force, the office said. “A review of the Illinois State Police investigation, including the body-worn camera footage, does not support a finding that Deputy Sean Grayson was justified in his use of deadly force,” John Milhiser, the Sangamon County state’s attorney, said in the statement.Mr. Grayson has since been fired from the sheriff’s office, Sheriff Jack Campbell said in a statement posted to the agency’s Facebook page.“It is clear that the deputy did not act as trained or in accordance with our standards,” Sheriff Campbell said.The shooting that led to the charges occurred on July 6, when Mr. Grayson and another deputy were sent to Ms. Massey’s home in Springfield at around 12:50 a.m., after Ms. Massey called 911 to report “a prowler,” according to officials’ statements.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Florida Sheriff Releases Footage in Police Killing of Airman Roger Fortson

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      The footage shows that the airman was holding a gun when he opened his door to a deputy, who then began firing. The airman’s family has called the killing unjustified.Under mounting pressure to offer a justification for the fatal police shooting of a U.S. Air Force senior airman in his own apartment last week, a Florida sheriff on Thursday released body camera footage of the deadly encounter.The footage shows Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, answering the door of his apartment in the Florida Panhandle and immediately being shot by a deputy from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. The video also shows that Airman Fortson was holding a gun, and the authorities have maintained that the deputy “reacted in self-defense.”The release of the footage came amid growing questions from the airman’s family and their lawyers — including Ben Crump, who has represented the family of George Floyd — who had accused the deputy of entering the wrong apartment, of not knocking or announcing himself and of bursting through the door.Some of those accusations appeared to be undercut by the body camera video. The lawyers said they were based on information from Airman Fortson’s girlfriend, who had been on a video call with him during the episode. They did not dispute that Airman Fortson was armed but said that he had every right to be as a legal gun owner in his own home.Asked if he believed the outcome would have been different if Airman Fortson was not Black, Mr. Crump said, “That is something that America has to answer.”The footage released Thursday shows that the deputy, who has not been identified, had been told by a woman at the apartment complex in Fort Walton Beach, in the Florida Panhandle, that he should go to apartment No. 1401 because of an apparent domestic dispute there.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sheriff’s Deputies Shoot Woman Inside Friend’s Home in Houston, Authorities Say

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      Body camera footage released on Saturday showed the two Harris County deputies repeatedly firing through the apartment’s window after a report of a break-in.A Houston woman was shot in her friend’s apartment this month by sheriff’s deputies who responded to a report of a break-in and fired repeatedly into the home, according to a statement and body camera footage released by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.Early on Feb. 3, the woman, Eboni Pouncy, and her friend smashed a window to get inside after forgetting the house key, according to a statement released last week by the civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who is representing Ms. Pouncy.The women were startled when, after 2 a.m., the deputies began pounding on the door, according Mr. Crump. Fearing an intruder, Ms. Pouncy picked up her legally registered firearm and, shortly after, was struck by five bullets, he said.Emergency medical workers took Ms. Pouncy to a hospital for treatment, the sheriff’s office said. While the nature of her injuries was unclear, Mr. Crump said in his statement that she was recovering.According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the two deputies responded to a report of an intruder at an apartment on the city’s east side at around 2:10 a.m. but found no one inside. Shortly afterward, a resident of a neighboring apartment told the deputies that someone had broken into another second-floor apartment, the sheriff’s office said. When deputies went to investigate the break-in, they found the front window screen removed, broken glass and the blinds raised near the front door, the sheriff’s office said.The footage, retrieved from deputies’ body-worn cameras and released on Saturday, shows the two deputies, who appear to be women, climbing the apartment staircase, knocking on the front door and then retreating a few feet away. One of the deputies says she sees someone coming and shouts, and then both deputies begin firing repeatedly through the glass windows. Both reload their guns and continue to fire several times.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More