The Illinois House passed legislation on Thursday requiring more thorough background checks before police officers are hired, less than a year after a Sangamon County Sheriff's deputy shot and killed Sonya Massey.
Massey was shot and killed last July by former Sangamon County Sheriff's deputy Sean Grayson last summer inside her home near Springfield.
Grayson has been fired and charged with first-degree murder in Massey's killing, and questions have been raised about why he was hired in the first place, given concerns about his conduct at past police jobs.
Grayson shot and killed Massey as she was checking on a pot of boiling water in her kitchen while saying "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus," but prosecutors have said Grayson asked her to move the pot off the stove, and that she never posed a danger that justified the use of lethal force.
By a 101-12 vote on Thursday, the Illinois House approved legislation sponsored by state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) that would require more comprehensive background checks before hiring police or other law enforcement officers in Illinois.
Law enforcement agencies would not be allowed to make a final job offer for police officers without first inspecting all of their prior employment records.
Anyone applying for a police officer job in Illinois would be required to authorize all previous employers, including other law enforcement agencies, to provide full employment records – including "duty-related physical and psychological fitness-for-duty examinations; work performance records," and any criminal records or records of other investigations connected to their conduct on the job.
Before Grayson was hired in Sangamon County, questions about his conduct were well-documented by other police agencies. But those concerns were somehow never shared with the Sangamon County Sheriff's office during the hiring process.
In his fifth police job, he refused to terminate a high-speed chase and drove more than 110 mph — only coming to an end when he hit a deer. A report from a department where Grayson was employed also said he struggled with report writing and was aggressive in his pursuit for drugs.
"It's just sad that we had to have had a tragedy like this with the Sonya Massey murder to realize that we are doing things wrong," said Buckner. "This is an opportunity to have some checks and some balances and some processes to make sure that we don't find ourselves in the same position and situation that we did when Sean Grayson was hired."
Massey's father, James Wilburn, said he hopes the legislation serves as a model for other states.
"This legislation in Illinois is a kind of commonsense legislation that will bring the kind of thing that this will never happen to another family," he said.
The legislation was passed unanimously by the Illinois Senate last month, and will go to Gov. JB Pritzker's desk.
Grayson is scheduled to go on trial in October in Peoria County. The Illinois Supreme Court is weighing a request from Grayson to be released from jail ahead of his trial.
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Todd Feurer