{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Justice Voices","title":"Ep. 27: Sonya Massey and Mental Health Board","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2194,"description":"Sonya Massey Called for Help. A Deputy Shot and Killed Her. Here's What Has to Change.Sonya Massey was a mother, a sister, a cousin. She was managing lupus, raising her children, living her life in Springfield, Illinois. In the early hours of July 6, 2024, she called police because she heard banging outside her home. She was alone. One of the responding Sangamon County deputies — Sean Grayson — shot and killed her. He was subsequently convicted of murder.Her cousin Sontae Massey is now Associate Director of the Massey Commission, the body created in her name. He joins Justice Voices alongside Adam White, Massey Commission staff member and expert on Sangamon County's mental health landscape, to make a case that is at once personal and structural: Sonya's death was preventable. And without action, it will happen again.The action in question: a referendum asking Sangamon County voters to approve a half-cent sales tax increase to fund a county 708 Mental Health Board — the kind that 66 of Illinois' 102 counties already have. Sangamon County doesn't.In this episode:Who Sonya Massey was — in her family's wordsWhat the body camera footage reveals about the night she diedWhy both guests say, without any doubt, she would be alive today if a co-responder had been on scene — and what a co-responder actually isWhat a 708 Mental Health Board would do (and what it would not do — it coordinates and funds services, it doesn't deliver them directly)Why Sangamon County's existing providers are siloed, underfunded, and competing against each other for the same grantsThe case for stable core funding over grant dependencyWhat the proposed tax actually covers — and the three major categories it exempts (registered vehicles, medical devices and drugs, groceries and gas)The $4/$7 return: every dollar invested in mental health saves $4 in healthcare costs and $7 in criminal justice costs (Dept. of Health and Human Services)What Winnebago County's mental health board produced: a 60% drop...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/v_eA1faTfXtDfgjZrce2uGksBGd5kquwlhIQuiexnl0/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9lNGVj/Zjg5ZWNmMDg4ZWRj/OGNiZWNmOGNjNjhh/OTI0MS53ZWJw.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}