Sonya Massey’s mother pleaded “I don’t want you to hurt her” in 911 call the day before fatal shooting

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.”

Grayson’s lawyer has declined to comment to CBS News.

—Alturo Rhymes contributed reporting.