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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday is anticipated to signal new laws requiring extra thorough background checks earlier than hiring cops, a regulation impressed by the capturing demise of Sonya Massey.
Massey was shot and killed by former Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson in July 2024 inside her house close to Springfield.
Grayson has been fired and charged with first-degree homicide in Massey’s killing, and questions have been raised about why he was employed within the first place, given considerations about his conduct at previous police jobs.
Grayson shot and killed Massey as she was checking on a pot of boiling water in her kitchen whereas saying “I rebuke you within the identify of Jesus,” however prosecutors have mentioned Grayson requested her to maneuver the pot off the range, and that she by no means posed a hazard that justified using deadly power.
The Illinois Home and Illinois Senate have handed the Sonya Massey Act, which might require extra complete background checks earlier than hiring police or different regulation enforcement officers in Illinois. Gov. Pritzker is scheduled to signal the measure into regulation on Tuesday afternoon.
Underneath the laws, regulation enforcement companies wouldn’t be allowed to make a closing job provide for cops with out first inspecting all of their prior employment data.
Anybody making use of for a police officer job in Illinois can be required to authorize all earlier employers, together with different regulation enforcement companies, to supply full employment data – together with “duty-related bodily and psychological fitness-for-duty examinations; work efficiency data,” and any prison data or data of different investigations related to their conduct on the job.
Earlier than Grayson was employed in Sangamon County, questions on his conduct had been well-documented by different police companies. However these considerations had been one way or the other by no means shared with the Sangamon County Sheriff’s workplace through the hiring course of.
In his fifth police job, he refused to terminate a high-speed chase and drove greater than 110 mph — solely coming to an finish when he hit a deer. A report from a division the place Grayson was employed additionally mentioned he struggled with report writing and was aggressive in his pursuit for medication.
Grayson is scheduled to go on trial for Massey’s demise in October in Peoria County. The Illinois Supreme Courtroom is weighing a request from Grayson to be launched from jail forward of his homicide trial.
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