Police review board holds meeting in response to the murder of Sonya Massey

NORMAL, Ill. – The Bloomington Public Safety and Community Relations Board (PSCRB) held a meeting addressing the murder of Sonya Massey on Aug. 28.

Sonya Massey was a 36-year-old Black woman who was murdered by an on-duty Springfield police officer in July. Following her killing, the national conversation on police accountability and racism in police forces has been reignited.

The PSCRB is Bloomington’s civilian-run police review board, responsible for looking over complaints against the police department. According to chairperson Rachel McFarland, the board’s role is to recommend policy changes in the department and avoid problems before they arise.

“It is a chance for the community to interact and ask questions,” McFarland said. “We’ve been very fortunate that we haven’t had an incident like this in our community, but it’s one of these things where we’d like to have them to feel safe, ultimately, that when they call the police for help, that they don’t end up in a situation like Ms. Massey.”

The meeting on Aug. 28 took place at the Bloomington Public Library and featured speakers from the board, the police department and the community itself. McFarland hopes that through outreach like this, the community can be made safer.

“One of the reasons why I wanted to join this board … following the George Floyd incident, I felt helpless and wanted to help,” McFarland said.

The PSCRB itself was created in 2017 in the wake of the police murder of Michael Brown, a Black teenager from Missouri. Board member Art Taylor has been a member since the board’s inception, and said most of their work has to do with minor policy changes.

“At our inception, we basically developed a relationship where it was not adversarial, but still somewhat independent,” Taylor said. “The board is independent from the police, but we still coordinate with the police.”

The PSCRB also holds regular meetings at 3:30 p.m. on the fourth Wednesday of each month. All meetings are open to the public.