SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Two emergency response calls were made from the home of Sonya Massey, the Black woman who was shot in the face by an Illinois sheriff’s deputy after she called 911 for help, in the days leading up to her death, according to records released Wednesday. In a third call, Massey’s mother, Donna Massey, reports that her daughter is suffering a “mental breakdown” and tells the dispatcher, “I don’t want you guys to hurt her.” She adds that she fears the police and asks that no officer who is “prejudiced” be sent.
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911 calls before Sonya Massey
In the other calls, a woman calling from Sonya Massey’s address, who doesn’t identify herself, says people want to hurt her, and a day later, a woman identifying herself as Sonya Massey reports a neighbor had hit her with a brick. The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department is still trying to determine whether Massey’s history of mental health issues was relayed to deputies responding to the call about a suspected prowler, which ended in her death on July 6.
Former sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson, 30, who is white, is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct in the shooting death of Massey, 36, in her home. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bond. Also Wednesday, Sheriff Jack Campbell released Grayson’s personnel file in response to public-records requests, with records leading up to his May 1, 2023, hire to his dismissal July 17, the day he was indicted. It confirms what was previously known, that Campbell was aware of Grayson’s two drunken driving convictions within a year, the first of which led to his premature discharge from the Army.
Campbell said DUIs do not disqualify a candidate and that Grayson’s rapid succession of jobs — five in four years before joining the Sangamon department — showed admirable ambition to advance to larger and more structured departments. The sheriff said he knew of no previous discipline problems. References indicating Grayson needed more training are common for young recruits, and Grayson subsequently attended 16 weeks of academy training, Campbell said.
Grayson’s March 31, 2023, psychological evaluation found him fit to serve but noted, “He knows he can move too fast at times. He needs to slow down to make good decisions. “Body camera video shows that after checking yards around the home just before 1 a.m. July 6, Massey greeted the deputies at the front door with, “Don’t hurt me,” appeared confused and repeated, “Please, God.” Inside her home, on the southeast side of Springfield, she had trouble finding her ID and asked for her Bible.
Following Grayson’s direction to remove a pot of water from the stove, she unexpectedly said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Grayson then pulled his gun and yelled at her to drop the presumably hot water before firing three times, striking her below the left eye. The personnel file includes the results of the internal investigation that led to Grayson’s dismissal, indicating that he violated rules on use of force and standards of conduct, failed to turn on his body camera or to provide medical aid and insubordination for refusing to answer questions during the investigation’s interview even after a superior ordered him to.
“Grayson immediately escalated to deadly force based on the decedent stating, ‘I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,’” Chief Deputy Anthony Mayfield wrote. “When Deputy Grayson pointed his firearm at the decedent, she was not making any aggressive movements, only talking. “Grayson’s failure to “attempt non-violent strategies and techniques” or to communicate led to Massey’s death, Mayfield said. Family members have said Massey struggled with mental health issues and had undergone treatment. Her son, Malachi Hill Massey, said last week that his mother sent him and his sister to live with their fathers the first week of July because she had checked herself into a 30-day inpatient treatment program, then returned two days later.
Shortly before 9:30 p.m. July 4, a 911 caller from Massey’s address said, “Somebody’s trying to hurt me.” When the dispatcher asked who, she said, “A lot of them.” Pressed for more information, she said, “Never mind. This must not be the right number,” and disconnected. When called back, she said she no longer needed police. Wilhite said officials do not know if it was Massey who called.
The next morning, just after 9 a.m., Donna Massey called saying her daughter was outside the house and yelling. She said Sonya Massey is not a danger to anyone, but “When she gets upset, she thinks everybody’s after her, like paranoid-schizophrenic.”
She told the dispatcher she fears the police and didn’t want her daughter to be hurt.
“Please don’t send no combative policemen that are prejudiced,” Donna Massey said.
Springfield police, who took the call, reported that Massey did not want to talk to medical professionals but was checked by emergency medical technicians who “cleared” her.
Sonya Massey called a few hours later to report a neighbor had hit her with a brick. A sheriff’s deputy caught up to her at a hospital, where the dispatch record said she went “to seek treatment of her mental state.” She told the officer the neighbor used a brick to break her SUV’s window and that she herself broke another “in an attempt to get into the car to get away.”
The deputy noted Massey appeared to be having mental health problems and was seeking treatment for scrapes she sustained reaching through the broken glass. She told the officer she had recently been released from a mental health facility and claimed that earlier that day “she was out with” police “who attempted to run her off the road.”
The officer said Massey also had paperwork from a July 3 interaction with a mental health mobile crisis unit from another Springfield hospital.
Twelve hours later, when Grayson and the second deputy responded to the July 6 call and were searching her yard, body camera video indicates they notice the broken windows on the SUV and ask Massey if it is hers, which she denies.
The mother of Sonya Massey, the Black woman killed in her home by an Illinois sheriff’s deputy earlier this month, called 911 the day before the fatal shooting asking for help for her daughter but told the dispatcher that she was worried police might hurt her, according to recordings released Wednesday by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department.
“Please don’t send no combative policemen that are prejudiced, please,” Massey’s mother, Donna, says in the call. “I’m scared of the police.” Then she adds, “Sometimes they make the situation worse.”
Donna Massey called 911 on July 5 around 9 a.m. to say her daughter was having a “mental breakdown” and needed help. “She is not a danger to herself, she’s not a danger to me,” Donna Massey says on the call. She referred to Massey’s mental episode as “paranoid schizophrenic.”
Sonya Massey, a mother of two, called 911 in the early morning hours on Saturday, July 6, to report a suspected prowler outside her house near Springfield, Illinois. Two deputies responded to the call. After searching outside, they came into Massey’s home to ask more questions, but after a tense exchange about a pot of hot water, a deputy shot Massey while she crouched in her kitchen, bodycam video shows.
The deputy who opened fire, Sean Grayson, who is White, has been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct in Massey’s death. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and is being held in the Sangamon County Jail while he awaits trial. He was fired by the sheriff’s office after the shooting.
The 911 recordings released Wednesday also show that some officers and first responders, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, discussed whether Massey had shot herself.
“They are now saying it’s self-inflicted,” an official says in a call to report the police shooting.
“Either self-inflicted or they may have shot her,” another official says in another follow-up call. It was not clear from the calls where the wrong information about the shooting being possibly self-inflicted came from.
The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department says the officers on the scene always knew it was Grayson who shot Massey and that at 1:27 a.m the Sheriff’s Office leadership was notified of a deputy-involved shooting.
An autopsy report confirmed Massey was shot just beneath her left eye, and the bullet exited the back of her upper neck. The bullet caused a skull fracture, perforated her carotid artery, and caused bleeding in her brain.
The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department also released the recording of the 911 call Massey made on July 6 at 12:49 a.m. “I keep hearing stuff on the outside of the house. It sounds like someone was banging on the outside of my house, I don’t know. Could y’all come and see?” Massey said.
The bodycam video shows deputies searching Massey’s property and then knocking at least five times before Massey comes to the door. They are later seen inside her home, and the other deputy’s camera is recording the scene as Grayson shoots Massey.
Grayson’s record has come under scrutiny following the shooting. He had a disciplinary file that included accusations of bullying behavior and abuse of power, records obtained by CBS News show.
CBS News previously reported Grayson pleaded guilty twice to driving under the influence prior to becoming a police officer, that he served in six different departments in four years, and that he left the Army after only 19 months.
In a recording released by the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, where Grayson worked from May 2022 to April 2023, a supervising officer is heard admonishing Grayson for what the senior officer said was his lack of integrity, for lying in his reports, and for what he calls “official misconduct.”
“The sheriff and I will not tolerate lying or deception,” the officer tells him in the audio recording of a November 2022 meeting obtained by CBS News. At one point, the supervising officer warns Grayson that “officers [like you] have been charged and they end up in jail.”
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