* Subscribers know more. Governor Pritzker at an unrelated news conference this morning…

Amanda Vinicky: Could speak about you why are you calling for the resignation of the Sangamon County Sheriff? And also, I believe, you committed to the Massey family that you would sign a bill in her name?

Governor Pritzker: That’s a little inaccurate. We had a conversation about it. There wasn’t a bill. There were some ideas that were discussed when I visited with the Massey family.

But let me just begin by reminding everybody of this terrible tragedy and something that never should happen anywhere in the United States, let alone in the state of Illinois or in Sangamon County. Where a woman who called police to get help, asked them to protect her was instead killed by the deputy sheriff. And if you watch the video, in a horrific fashion.

I can’t get past the idea that we have to do more to protect people. We’ve done a lot, and I want to credit the Illinois State Police, who did the investigation in a very short 10 days. That’s hard to do, to do an investigation, because you’ve got to do a lot of interviews. It’s a, you know, I think a fulsome endeavor and came to the state’s attorney, who immediately was able to get a grand jury to file charges. So it happened in a quick fashion as it can. But it never should have happened in the first place.

And I talked to one of the Black elected leaders in Illinois just after it happened, to get her perspective and she shared with me because I was so upset about it. She shared with me that even though, yeah, we haven’t made enough progress. She said to me that, you know, in years past, there never would have been an investigation. There wouldn’t have been a body cam. No one would have known what really happened. And maybe the silver lining, if there is a silver lining in this, is that someone is being held accountable. And yet we have much more to do.

So, yes, I sat with the Massey family and promised them that we would look at every avenue to determine how we might prevent this from happening to anyone ever again.

And I called for the Sheriff’s resignation, because the sheriff has failed. He has failed to explain how he ended up hiring this deputy sheriff who has been fired from other departments. He failed to put forward reforms that clearly need to be made, training and other reforms.

And [Campbell] still has failed to meet with the Massey family. That seems to me, I’m not saying that’s a fireable offense to not meet with them. But that just seems outrageous to me. At a minimum, listen to them, hear them and then, hopefully, take action.

So that’s why I called, and the Lieutenant Governor and I did that together, just to be clear, called for his resignation.

…Adding… WAND reporter Caryn Eisert has Sheriff Campbell’s response…

I was overwhelmingly elected to lead the Sheriff’s Office through both good times and bad. I am fully prepared to continue leading my office and serving the residents of Sangamon County through this difficult period, ensuring we learn from this tragedy and work toward a better future.

* Campbell’s full statement…

The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office continues to grieve for Sonya Massey and her family. While our grief cannot compare to the pain of the family, our office is trying to heal from within; All employees of the Sheriff’s Office feel betrayed by one of their own.
 
On four separate occasions, I have requested to meet with the Massey family through intermediaries designated by the family. My requests have been rejected or not accepted. I am still willing to meet with the family.

The Sheriff’s Office is willing to modify our hiring practices in order to prevent an incident like this from occurring again. However, before changes can be made, it is important to identify the problem. We have used a process that we believe was consistent with statewide standards. If these standards are deficient, we would advocate a change at all necessary levels. 

We are working diligently to gather all the facts in order to make intelligent decisions and to avoid making changes that are unlikely to lead to meaningful results. I agree with the Governor’s comments from yesterday, there are still questions. I have worked tirelessly to make all the facts available to the public as swiftly and transparently as possible.

I am committed to working with our community and elected leaders to improve not only the Sheriff’s Office but also hiring standards on a statewide level to prevent a state agency from certifying a similar law enforcement officer six different times in the future. 

We need to unite and heal. The one responsible is in jail and will never work in law enforcement again. Calls for my resignation are nothing more than political maneuvering during a tragic event and only hurt the good citizens of Sangamon County.

I was overwhelmingly elected to lead the Sheriff’s Office through both good times and bad. I am fully prepared to continue leading my office and serving the residents of Sangamon County through this difficult period, ensuring we learn from this tragedy and work toward a better future.
 

…Adding… The governor pushed back on Campbell’s statement during his second press conference of the day…

It’s been a month. It’s been a month. We should have seen already a meeting with the Massey family. If he’s reached out, he hasn’t done a very good job, because the Massey family hasn’t had the meeting that they’ve asked for.

Second, as you know, the deputy sheriff resigned from every position. [Sean Grayson] held positions for less than a year, sometimes for just a few months, six times resigned. And I ask the question simply, and I think people have for a month now, what did the sheriff know about his background? Why didn’t he do more work on his background before hiring him? And a month has gone by again. A lot could have been said about that over the course of this month.

And the final thing is, this isn’t about politics. It’s about bringing people together in Sangamon County and making people feel safe. It’s the sheriff’s job to make people feel safe, and he’s done the opposite of that by not answering questions, by going to a church and beginning his remarks by saying, I’m not resigning, like as if that’s the first thing people want to hear. And then there are signs that have been put up about saving him, not doing something about the murder of Sonia Massey, but about saving his political career. So I think he’s the one that’s played politics. It’s time for him to go.