15-05-2025
2 Sonya Massey bills pass House, head to Governor's desk
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — New legislation is heading to Governor Pritzker's desk that lawmakers hope will prevent future tragedies such as the killing of Sonya Massey.
On Thursday, the Illinois House of Representatives passed two bills that were sponsored by Senator Doris Turner and Representative Kam Buckner. One — SB 1953 — aims to revise police hiring procedures by requiring law enforcement agencies to take a more comprehensive review into an applicant's past employment. Their former employers would have to make available their employment records for inspection by the hiring agency prior to a 'final offer of employment' being made.
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The second bill — SB 1954 — allows for Sangamon County to establish a recall procedure for elected officials, a procedure that would be up for a referendum in November of 2026.
Both bills previously passed the Senate — 1953 unanimously and 1954 by a party-line vote. With the House's approval, the bills now only need Governor Pritzker's signature to become law.
Prior to the bills' passage in the House, Turner and Buckner hosted a news conference to explain the legislation and answer questions. Turner was a friend of the Massey family and knew Sonya personally.
'This is very difficult for me, because this is not just another tragedy in my district. This is one that's very, very close to me' Turner said during an opening statement. 'Sonya was not just a constituent or someone I knew casually…Sonya was a regular visitor to my home. We actually visited on my front porch a week before her murder. During our visits, she always called me 'Auntie.''
Guided by the calls of Sonya's mother for justice, Turner helped create the Massey Commission and started writing the legislation immediately. She had both the support of the Massey Commission, the Illinois Sheriff's Association and the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.
Turner and Buckner were joined at the news conference by Tony Romanucci, a lawyer representing the Massey family, and Sonya's father James Wilburn. All four expressed that Sean Grayson,, the former sheriff's deputy who shot Massey, should never have been hired by the Sangamon County Sheriff's Office.
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WCIA previously reported that before joining law enforcement, Grayson pleaded guilty in two misdemeanor DUI cases and that he had a history of disciplinary issues at his previous jobs in the Logan County Sheriff's Office and the Girard Police Department in Macoupin County.
Former Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell said he was aware of the DUI charges, but he was not aware of Grayson's history in Logan County. Campbell's office received no documents from its counterpart that would have helped to make a hiring decision.
'You need to know the full story, the disciplinary files, the internal investigations, the psychological evaluations. And you need to do it before they are on our streets or worse, off in our homes,' Buckner said. 'Every department deserves to hire with integrity. We owe it to Sonya. We owe it to her father. We owe it to every family who's lived through this kind of pain or who praise if they never have to.'
'They want good officers on the street. They don't want bad officers to be hired,' Turner added. 'And that was one of the reasons why I believe that the Police Chiefs' and Sheriffs' Associations were so eager to work with me on this and come to the table very early on back in the summer and continue to work on it.'
SB 1953 also expands the creation of police merit boards and commissions by lowering the population requirement. Current law says that only counties with a population of 1 million or more can establish these boards and commissions; SB 1953 lowers that requirement to 75,000.
'Had Senate Bill 1953 been in place when Sean Grayson was applying for that position, he would not have been hired,' Romanucci said. 'We would not be here having this press conference and Sonya would be alive. So that is how important this bill is.'
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If SB 1953 is signed by Governor Pritzker, Illinois would become the first state in the nation to pass this kind of legislation. It was legislation that James Wilburn called for in the aftermath of his daughter's death and it is legislation that he wants to see implemented nationwide.
'I commit now that this kind of law that Senator Turner and Leader Buckner have introduced in Illinois, it should go across all the states of the United States so that no other family has to go through what we're going through,' Wilburn said. 'I'm just so thankful today that we're right here at the precipice of making this law in Illinois. And Illinois can be the leader in our country. They say 'So goes California, so goes the United States.' I think 'So goes Illinois,' as the leader and the first one to pass this kind of legislation. This needs to go across the whole United States. And that's my commitment here today that that happens.'
SB 1954, meanwhile, was created in response to the calls for Campbell to resign and his initial resistance to doing so. Sangamon County does not currently have a way of recalling elected officials from their positions.
To recall a countywide elected official, electors of the county would be required to submit petitions containing signatures equal to at least 15% of the total votes cast for governor in the preceding election.
The news conference and the passage of the two bills come a day after the Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments on Grayson's pretrial detention.
'It is tough to think about the timing, but it also is just proof positive that we're doing the right thing and we're doing all we can to make sure this doesn't happen again,' Turner said.
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