Justice for Sonya Massey! Disarm the terrorist police!

Rallies and demonstrations were held across the U.S. on July 28 to protest the police murder of Sonya Massey in Springfield, Illinois. The 36-year-old Black mother of two children was shot in her own home by the white Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson on July 6.

Massey had called 911 to report a possible intruder but was killed instead by a uniformed intruder with a badge. She pleaded with the deputies, saying, “Please don’t hurt me.”

“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” said Massey. Grayson responded by firing three shots at the unarmed woman. The pig then ordered that no medical assistance be given to the dying woman.

Hundreds rallied in New York City’s Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan. Speakers denounced the foul, racist murder.

Three days before, on July 25, people marched from there to Times Square. Police tried to stop the demonstrators and arrested at least one.

Among the speakers in Washington Square was Linda Sarsour. She linked the police murders of Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people in the United States with the U.S.-financed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Erica Ford reminded listeners of the murders committed by New York City cops. Among the hundreds killed in New York were:

• Eleanor Bumpurs, killed for owing $394 in rent
• Amadou Diallo, who was trying to show police his identification when they shot at him 41 times
• Sean Bell, whom the police shot 50 times on what was supposed to be his wedding day

Terrorists in blue uniforms

It was only because of decades of struggle and the Black Lives Matter movement that Sean Grayson was fired and charged with first-degree murder. Even though Grayson can be seen on his body cam video shooting Sonya Massey, the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police claimed he was “fired without cause.”

That’s more proof that police departments across the U.S. are terrorist organizations. Grayson was so volatile that he was hired and fired by several police departments and discharged from the U.S. Army for “misconduct.”

There was also a demonstration in Newark, New Jersey. One of the event’s organizers was People’s Organization for Progress Charman Larry Hamm.

Hamm was skeptical that justice would be served in this case. “Even though he has been charged, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be convicted, and if he is convicted, that doesn’t mean he’s going to get the sentence that he deserves,” the POP leader said.

Sonya Massey was a descendant of the shoemaker and former Underground Railroad conductor William Donnegan, who was lynched during the 1908 Springfield race riot. Donnegan, who was 80 years old at the time of his murder, had made shoes for Abraham Lincoln. He died in St. John’s Hospital on Aug. 16, 1908, the same hospital where Sonya Massey died. 

The 1908 pogrom in Springfield, in which 16 people died, was a catalyst for the founding of the NAACP in 1909.

More than a century later, there are more than a thousand people killed every year by police across the United States. Police killed 1,352 people in 2023 and 763 people so far this year; that’s 56 more compared to the same period last year.