Sonya Massey made multiple 911 calls for mental health crises in days before police shot her at home
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Sonya Massey, the Black woman who was shot in the face by an Illinois sheriff’s deputy after she called 911 for help, had made at least two other emergency response calls in the days leading up to her July 6 death, according to records released Wednesday.
But 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.
Body-worn 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.’”
A third call — on July 4 — was disclosed in response to public records requests for 911 calls from Massey’s address, but the caller does not give her name.
Grayson, 30, is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct in the shooting death of the 36-year-old Massey in her home. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bond.
Body-cam video shows that after checking yards around the home just before 1 a.m. on 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,” prompting Grayson to pull his gun and yell at her to drop the presumably hot water before firing three times, striking her below the left eye.
Family members have said that Massey struggled with mental health issues and had undergone treatment. Her son, 17-year-old 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., an unidentified family member reported their “daughter having mental breakdown,” according to the dispatch record, followed by the note, “not dangerous but paranoid.” 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.
Massey called again, 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 an interaction on July 3 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-cam 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, he 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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