* This is the best drill-down into a pretextual stop I think I’ve ever seen in print. The piece, by Farrah Anderson and Sam Stecklow, looks into the background of former Sangamon County Sheriff Deputy Sean Grayson, who’s been indicted on three counts of murder in the fatal shooting of Sonya Massey…
The first sign of trouble in Logan County came just months after his hiring. According to department records, while on patrol around 1:41 a.m. on Sept. 22, 2022, Grayson spotted a woman in a parked truck, who seemingly crouched down in the driver’s seat in an attempt to avoid being seen by him.
When the woman drove away, Grayson followed her and eventually attempted to pull her over for allegedly rolling through a stop sign — prompting Grayson to initiate a high speed chase during which he struck a deer. In reviewing the incident, department officials found that, in a number of instances, the details of Grayson’s written report did not match the dash camera footage from his vehicle and that had violated a number of policies during the chase.
In the interview, Grayson appears to admit to initiating the traffic pursuit, which reached speeds of 110 miles per hour, for potentially illegal reasons, claiming that the woman who he attempted to pull over looked suspicious. His supervisors ultimately recommended he receive training for “high-stress decision making.”
In a lengthy interview about the chase in November 2022, Logan County Chief Deputy Nathan Miller and another department supervisor made clear that Grayson had not been operating up to their expectations and that they were aware of issues with arrests he had made while at his previous departments — issues that pointed to questions about Grayson’s accuracy and honesty in writing reports. […]
As the interview continued, Miller brought up concerns with Grayson’s professionalism and honesty, and revisited the September chase.
“What was the stop for?” Miller asked.
“Well, initially it was just for rolling the stop sign,” Grayson said. “It was a simple little traffic thing. My initial, what I was gonna stop ‘em for, was the behavior in the vehicle, was what originally caught my attention. I just needed to wait for them to start the vehicle.”
“You were gonna stop them for just their behavior in the vehicle?” Miller asked.
“No, I mean, I was gonna wait for a traffic violation, but in my mind, that was the whole reason why I was gonna see what they were doing, was the reaction of the female in the truck,” Grayson said.
According to Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor who directs the school’s Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project, this was a “classic pretext stop” — one without any other reason to exist other than to pull the person over.
“Seeing someone look at you and then slouch doesn’t create reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person has committed a crime, so there’s not a legal or lawful basis to stop. He does admit his plan was, ‘I’m going to follow and then stop her as soon as I can find any reason to do so,’” Futterman said. “It’s the classic, there will be some traffic violation I can come up with that will provide a basis to stop after the fact.”
After asking Grayson whether he had checked his report about the chase for accuracy, Miller went over the locations in Google Maps, showing the officer that he had in fact been on a different street during the incident than he had written in his report — and that it would have been impossible for him to have seen the woman in the truck based on where he had written they were both sitting.
- Homebody - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 1:51 pm:
The story is always the same. Something tragic and criminal occurs. Then when the full story comes out, it turns out there was a long and sordid history of red flags that people over looked, ignored, or just flat out tolerated.
The same story always seems to be the case, whether we’re talking about a bad cop, a DV perpetrator, a school shooter, or any number of other examples.
People love to say “how could anyone have known?” when the real question should be “how could anyone not?”
- Annonin' - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:06 pm:
It started befor
e that. The general discharge should have been enough to make him a non starter for law enforcement. Generals usually mean there are a batch of other no nonsense the scorecard.
- Give Us Barabbas - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:23 pm:
Veteran preference is great for hiring in any civilian field. And I applaud it.
Making it a de facto requirement to get hired for LEO, regardless what your MOS was and regardless of your disciplinary history was, and making it a free pass for getting out of bad performance as a LEO, no bueno. The Sheriff might not lose his job over this, but heads should be rolling in his HR department and everyone in the decision chain that enabled this, and continues to enable it in departments everywhere.
- JS Mill - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:26 pm:
This guy should have been a red flag for sangamon county. The lawsuits have only started but Logan and Sangamon County are going to pay big. That does not bring the victim back to life though. For that grayson should spend the rest of his life behind bars.
- Excitable Boy - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:31 pm:
Grayson severe, obvious and should have been disqualifying problems aside, our system of policing and police culture is broken as a whole. This is as true in Chicago as it is in Logan County.
Our law enforcement officers seem to consider themselves above the law, and apparently psychic.
Instead of coming up with reasons to initiate contact with individuals that give them a funny feeling, their efforts need to be focused on investigating actual crimes and building a relationship with the communities they’re supposed to serve.
- Dotnonymous x - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 2:39 pm:
If Sheriff Campbell isn’t responsible…who is?
“I’m sorry, let’s move on”… ain’t gonna get it this time…is it?
- Pundent - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:29 pm:
=If Sheriff Campbell isn’t responsible…who is?=
There’s a lot of things that Sheriff Campbell believes are outside of his scope of responsibilities. So none of this should surprise us.
https://tinyurl.com/CampbellKSDK
- Anyone Remember - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:36 pm:
” … but heads should be rolling in his HR department … .”
And the Deputy Merit Commission.
https://sangamonil.gov/departments/a-c/county-board/boards-and-commissions/boards-and-commissions-members
- Dotnonymous x - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:45 pm:
Macoupin County State’s Attorney Jordan Garrison confirmed that police found a gun in the center console, but Grayson did not face a weapons charge because he was a resident of Fort Riley, Kansas. Kansas has an open-carry firearms law. - (AP)
Wait a minute…Grayson wasn’t charged with the illegal weapon in his possession because He was a resident of another state?…Huh?…that’s like saying a person found with marijuana in Indiana can’t be charged because that person lives in Illinois…Huh?
- RNUG - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:48 pm:
The investigative article is type of journalism that has often been missing from the media. It’s quite a read.
== If Sheriff Campbell isn’t responsible … who is? ==
Ultimately, as the top person, the Sheriff has gets the responsibility land on his desk. But it appears there are quite a few other people who bear at least partial responsibility both internally at Sangamon County and at the various other organizations all the way to the military. Obviously, some of this papering over happened to avoid giving Grayson a legal reason to contest his leaving the prior agencies.
Yes, in retrospect the red flags were there … but they were more like yellow caution flags than clear cut red flags, likely out of some level of consideration of the litigious society we live in.
So how do we prevent something like this in the future?
One unanswered question is exactly how deep Sangamon County HR actually dug on Grayson’s record? Or did they just take the State Board’s word that there was nothing serious?
While one may never prove that fear of a lawsuit over a coerced ‘voluntary’ resignation or transfer resulted in only faded yellow flags, that appears to be a likely root cause of Grayson moving from agency to agency. Yes, we live under the rule of an assumption of innocence in pretty much all cases. But maybe the General Assembly should take a look at that and establish a higher standard for people entrusted to use deadly force. I’m thinking the GA needs to put in place a higher shield for the agencies themselves and make it a lot easier to discharge bad apples and protect the agencies (except in some pretty extreme cases) from any kind of libel or wrongful discharge suits by former employees. I realize this goes further than a lot of people would be comfortable with, but it is one of the few things I can think of.
The other things the GA should take a look at is giving the State Certification Board (a) more authority to act, (b) directions to make all reports and lists public, and (c) a kick in the rear to more aggressively do what they are already directed / charged to do.
- Norseman - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:49 pm:
The MAGA GOP County Board is famous for being stingy with money. I’m sure they will have a long discussion with the Sheriff when they have to pay the settlement money on this one.
- RNUG - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 3:57 pm:
Rich, I wrote a long post I’m not seeing. It might have gotten caught by one or more of your filter(s). And if you feel I went out of bounds, feel free to edit or decline it. But I third to stick to issues and solutions.
- Excitable Boy - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 4:20 pm:
- that appears to be a likely root cause of Grayson moving from agency to agency. -
What are you talking about? It appears he would jump ship because he knew he was probably about to be fired.
Given his apparent track record no one other than the silliest bureaucrat would have any qualms about firing him due to potential lawsuits.
- thechampaignlife - Tuesday, Jul 30, 24 @ 4:28 pm:
This pretextual stop makes the news because the driver fled, Grayson chased in violation of policy, and he lied/botched his report. But think about all the times he did this (and others continue to do) and found nothing, just harassing someone for no reason. Or where the interaction itself caused significantly more harm than any crime that was discovered, such as the shooting in the back of unarmed Walter Scott for running to avoid arrest for owing child support.
A fleeing driver sounds like someone we should be concerned about, both because of the risk they pose while fleeing and because of the crime they may have committed which caused them to flee. While that would seemingly validate the suspicion which led to the pretextual stop, knowing what we now know about Grayson makes fleeing sound like the prudent choice.