The sheriff for Illinois’ Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, which employed the former deputy who shot and killed Sonya Massey in her home earlier this month after she called 911 to report a possible intruder, said during public comments Monday night that they had “failed” her.
“Sonya Massey – I speak her name and I’ll never forget it,” Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell said during a “Community Healing & Listening Session” Monday night at Union Baptist Church in Springfield. “She called for help and we failed. That’s all she did: call for help."
“I’m going to say something right now I’ve never said in my career before: we failed,” Campbell continued. "We did not do our jobs. We failed Sonya. We failed Sonya’s family and friends. We failed the community. I stand here today before you with arms wide open to ask for forgiveness.”
“I’m going to say something right now I’ve never said in my career before: we failed,” Campbell continued. "We did not do our jobs. We failed Sonya. We failed Sonya’s family and friends. We failed the community. I stand here today before you with arms wide open to ask for forgiveness.”
Great. So how did you end up hiring this known asshole, and what are you going to do to keep it from happening again?
Yes. Forgiveness demands a commitment to be better in the future. No matter how eloquently and humbly phrased, this is just “sorry” if there are no concrete actions being committed to.
The common refrain from my childhood was “‘Sorry’ isn’t good enough”.
It was really annoying at 8yo, but I get it now…
I’m sure even when you heard it as an 8 year old It wasn’t after you shot someone in the face for no reason. Lmao.
Police chief:
To ensure this doesn’t happen again, we’ve prepared hundreds of “I’m sorry” templates that will fire off. So when our officers do heinous shit like this again, the Sorry will be within 24 hours, not a week later.
Some examples of these, you ask?
Sorry for shooting your dog.
Sorry for roughing up your grandfather.
Sorry for showing up at the robbery hours later.
Sorry for laughing when you called for aid.
Sorry for raping that woman.
Sorry for all stats about us beating our spouses and partners.
Sorry for spending millions on taxpayer money on surveillance that statistically has shown it doesn’t move the needle in public safety
We can do better. By saying sorry faster.
Don’t forget the newest hit single; “Sorry we shot through your four-year-old child in order to kill the man holding him hostage.”
Sorry for spending millions on taxpayer money on surveillance that statistically has shown it doesn’t move the needle in public safety
Hey do you have supporting links for this? I’m not asking to challenge you, I’m asking because I’d like to have some of those at hand in related/similar discussions.
Wow, this is the first time that police department has failed with him at the helm? What an incredible record!
In the sense that it lacks credibility.
Hiring “bad apples” needs to be a crime for the sheriff, chief, etc. It’s sad that’s what it would take to keep guns and badges out of these guys hands.
“I’m going to say something right now I’ve never said in my career before: we failed,” Campbell continued. "We did not do our jobs. We failed Sonya. We failed Sonya’s family and friends. We failed the community. I stand here today before you with arms wide open to ask for forgiveness.”
Sounds nice, and likely sincere, but you did all those things before he killed her, when you hired and retained a man with the authority to kill with the history and issues he had. How about we stop waiting for cops to execute someone before we scrutinize them?
“We did not do our jobs.”
When most people don’t do their jobs they get fired
ACAB
If there’s no actual consequences for the department, this wasn’t a failure. This was a success they don’t like getting bad PR for.
If a construction worker started cutting beams and caused the building to collapse that wouldn’t be “not doing their job”, that would be active and malicious sabotage. This isn’t even remotely an apology, it makes it sound like they just ignored a call for help, not actively created a situation that no one asked for.
Imagine if the police used some critical thinking. Discharged from the military for his conduct, 2 DUIs (thats just when he got caught). How the hell did this guy keep his job as law enforcement after the first DUI? That should pretty much immediately take you off the force. If they can’t be trusted to drive sober and responsibly, how can we trust them as a law enforcement officer? What if they showed up drunk to work as well?
This situation could have been avoided if the police were more critical of themselves as an organization and had stricter rules and regulations for themselves.
He also got let go from another law enforcement agency for arguably sexual assault.
The thing is - I’m a big believer in redemption (not in a religious sense) and self improvement. I could believe all that could be true and the guy could become a decent person at some point in the future. But you don’t (or shouldn’t) get to have a job where you have the power of life or death over everyone you interact with until after you’ve completed your redemption arc.
Yea i get that. You got 1 DUI when you were 22 and now you’re 35 and applying to be a cop? That sounds okay people can change. 3 DUIs in the 2nd year of employment as a cop? Comepletely different story.
💯
How the hell did this guy keep his job as law enforcement after the first DUI?
The answer is “Police Union”
This situation could have been avoided if the police were more critical of themselves as an organization and had stricter rules and regulations for themselves.
Police Union automatically fights any and all attempts at imposing more accountability to their members.
I’d hate to see what a colossal fuck up looks like if this is a “fail”.
Your apology is not accepted.
You need to suffer severe consequences and accountability for your actions. Severe.
Nice words. Truly. But words are meaningless without actions to back them up and make sure it never happens again.
They could start by firing any cop with a DUI. Seems like a conflict to keep those people employed by the police.
Yeah. Cops always want to treat this as a one off incidents no one could have saw coming…
Isnt this one of the ones where dude was fired from multiple agencies and kept getting hired?
If these cops want “forgiveness” they need to be proactive and fire every other cop they employ like this, and stop hiring new ones.
They want to blame the bad apples, but refuse to get rid of them until it’s national news.
So will there be police reform?!.. God no, instead:
“Sorry” is an okay first step but wont fix anything. Did you see the resume of the cop who killed her? How the fuck was he hired?
“Please accept our apology for this tragic event which we failed to prevent. Please also accept our apology for the next tragic event we fail to prevent.”
By “failed her” he means “killed her”.
Too little, too late, pig.
Not only should the officer that murdered her be held accountable, but everyone up the chain of command should be as well. There is no way that they did not know this guy was an unstable loose cannon. His record goes back to when he was an MP.
I am no longer a supporter of capital punishment, but this case is making a strong argument for it.
