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.
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 that a neighbor hit her with a brick.
The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department is still trying to determine whether Massey’s history of mental health issues were relayed to deputies responding to the call about a suspected prowler, which ended in her death on July 6.
Body camera video released last week suggests it wasn’t. Two minutes after former sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson shoots Massey with a 9mm round, he’s heard asking dispatch whether there’s any record of calls from Massey indicating she has mental health troubles.
Such information is passed along if it’s known, but there’s no built-in mechanism that ensures it, said Jeff Wilhite, spokesperson for Sheriff Jack Campbell.
“It’s possible, if the dispatcher knew the calls were linked, but it’s not an automatic,” Wilhite said. “The dispatcher would have to know ‘yes, it’s the same person’ and ‘yes, it’s the same address.'”
Grayson, 30, 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.
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.
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 in the St. Louis area, then returned two days later.
At 9:27 p.m. on 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, at 9:07 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 HSHS St. John’s 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 some 10-96 issues,” police code for 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 in Granite City, 10 miles (16.1 kilometers) northeast of St. Louis, 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.
“Someone just parked it in your driveway?” Grayson asks.
“They brought it to my driveway,” Massey responds.
Grayson asks if she’s “doing all right mentally,” and Massey says, “Yes, I took my medicine.”
Minutes after the shooting, while retrieving his medical kit, Grayson radios in, asking, “Do we have any call history with her being 10-96?”
The answer isn’t heard, but after a moment, Grayson says, “That would explain a lot.”
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This story has been updated to clarify that Sonya Massey made one call while another call came from her address, but the woman calling didn’t identify herself.
