Sonja Proust, founder of Police Reform Advocacy Group, Black Police Experience, and retired captain of the Montgomery County, Maryland Police Department. Sonja, thank you so much for coming on the show. First, just like to get your reaction to the body cam video of Sonja Massey being shot and killed in her own home.

Thank you for having me. First, my condolences to the Massey family and their loved ones. This was a really tragic incident that really could have been avoided. There was clearly a mental health element. We a woman, a young woman, calling for the police ostensibly to check for a prauler, perhaps. And then they come, the deputies come, and then she becomes someone who's under suspicion. I'm going to jump right to it. This woman asked for help. The deputies came. They have a conversation with her. There is something going on with the conversation where you might summarize or surmise that Maybe there is a mental health element. And so now I know that, and I'm going to treat this person, this human being, with that in mind. But instead, when Ms. Massey goes to her kitchen, she takes a pot off the stove, a pot of supposedly boiling water, the deputy becomes defensive, and then she becomes someone who is under suspicion. I have an issue with officers who put themselves in harm's way. In this case, the deputy He asks or orders Ms. Massey to put the pot down. She seems confused. She's trying to like, What am I supposed to do?

And the next thing you know, he has shot her. But if you are concerned about a boiling pot of water and you're an officer, and you're in the space that he was in, why not retreat? The analogy for me is when officers want to hang on to the frame of a car door or put themselves in front of a moving vehicle and then expect that they can use lethal force because placed themselves in this situation and it created this escalation instead of de-escalation. That is what I see here.

What would have been the appropriate response in this situation? She started saying that she rebukes Satan or the devil, and it seems like she's still there with the pot. What would you have liked to have seen the officers do?

If I see that she's picked up a boiling pot of water, I might just take Ms. Basty and talk to her gently. Please put that down. She looked as though she was trying to comply with whatever it was the deputy was saying, but maybe she became confused. I'm going to jump a little bit forward about training. Are we training our law enforcement to recognize humanity when they respond to calls for service? Everybody is not out to kill the police. Everyone is not out to attack the police. Sometimes people are going through something. They don't deserve to die because they cannot make a split-second decision, which is what law enforcement asks the citizenry of this country to do, allow for us to make a split-second decision.

The Massey family attorney Ben Crum told ABC News that the 36-year-old struggled with mental health. Far too often, we see these types of encounters turn violent or deadly when mental health is at play, particularly for people of color. What do you think the solution is with that?

That's a great question. Black people are killed by police at twice the rate of white people doing the most mundane of things, watching television, in the case of a Tatiana Jefferson in Texas, playing with her nephew and thinking there's a prola outside and picking up her gun because she wants to protect her family. It just seems that more and more, or at least we're noticing it more and more, Black people are not allowed that grace. And law enforcement has not been batting an eyelid, which is concerning to me. Okay? So what we need is a commitment from law enforcement. We need to focus on some other things like training, training on equity, what service actually means, and what humanity looks like. That is the training that will save lives. And I think that the public is asking for that.

Sonja Pruitt, we thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

You're welcome.