SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — James Wilburn spent days not knowing how his daughter Sonya Massey died.
On July 6, Massey was shot by Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson after Massey called 911.
In the initial statement about the event, officials did not make it clear either that a deputy shot Massey. That piece of information was confirmed by county officials a couple days later. Wilburn learned about that fact from the news.
“I was under the impression that a prowler had broke in and killed my baby,” Wilburn said Monday. “Never did they say it was a deputy-involved shooting until my brother read it on the internet.”
New records of scanner traffic the morning of Massey’s death show that it was more than just her family that was confused in the aftermath of the shooting.
Massey makes the first call. According to the records released by the Sangamon County Dispatch office, Massey called 911 at 12:49 a.m.
“I keep hearing stuff on the outside of my house, and it sounds like someone is banging on the side of my house,” Massey said in the call. “Could you guys come and see?”
Deputies arrive on scene, and search the property for several minutes. Massey does not answer the door immediately, but eventually does at 1:15 am.
Body camera footage released Monday shows what happened next. After sitting inside with the deputies for several minutes, Deputy Sean Grayson notices a pot of hot water on the still-lit stove. Massey goes to move the pot. Grayson is heard making a comment about the hot water in the pot. Massey responds to Grayson, saying “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
That is when Grayson pulls his gun, and says she better not, or he will shoot her in the face. Massey can be seen in the video dropping the pot, saying “I’m sorry,” and ducking behind the counter. Grayson then walked around the counter, telling her to drop the pot. He then fires his gun three times, hitting Massey once in the face.
Grayson and the other deputy can be heard screaming “shots fired” on the dispatch logs.
Shortly after, Grayson can be heard asking dispatchers a question.
“Does she have any call history for being 10/96?” Grayson asks at 1:23 a.m.
A 10/96 call refers to someone suffering from mental health issues. On the body camera video, Grayson can be seen asking Massey multiple questions about her mental health, like whether she had taken her medication. At one point, he even slows down his speech to ask her a question.
After Grayson posed the question, a dispatcher can be heard asking if the gunshot wound was self-inflicted. The answer given by deputies is not clear. In a different recording from later on in the morning, a dispatcher says the deputy’s response was too short, and the county office’s recording software did not pick it up clearly.
From there, dispatch calls in more units to the scene from multiple different agencies.
In another recording released by Sangamon County Dispatch, a dispatcher calls the Illinois State Police Dispatch line.
“We don’t actually know what happened; he just screamed shots fired. Somebody heard — one of the dispatchers heard the gunshots and said female shot in the head, but we don’t know if she shot herself or if a deputy shot her,” the county dispatcher said.
She takes a pause, and then adds more information.
“They’re now saying self-inflicted,” she added.
At 1:40 a.m., a member of the Sheriff’s Department calls and asks dispatch to call in the State Police Investigations Unit.
Those calls all happened within a half an hour of Massey being shot, but other calls that were recorded show the communication breakdown lasted much longer.
Nearly three hours after Massey was declared dead at the hospital, a member of Sangamon County Dispatch calls a supervisor who had not been in the building all night. The dispatcher fills in the supervisor, but said they still were missing key information.
“We also just had what may be an officer-involved shooting,” the dispatcher said in a call just before 5 a.m. “We don’t have any info and nobody will tell us, which is really fun.”
Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon was notified of the incident just before 2 a.m., within 15 minutes of Massey’s time of death. A dispatcher tells Allmon that he “believes” they have an officer-involved shooting that resulted in a death. Allmon confirmed to WCIA that at no point was he or anybody in his office told this was a self-inflicted gun shot wound.
Sonya Massey family got mixed messages
The confusion over what happened spread beyond just the dispatch phone lines. Massey’s family also couldn’t get straight answers.
Jimmie Crawford Jr., the father of Massey’s daughter, also said when he arrived on scene, officers did not tell him it was a deputy-involved shooting either.
“When I got to the scene, officer notified me that it was under investigation,” Crawford said. “(He said) we knew that she had problems with her neighbor. Not once was I told that the officer did it. They tried to make me believe that it was a neighbor or somebody did it.”
At a press conference with nationally renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump on Tuesday, Crawford questioned how this could happen.
“We don’t understand how that message got passed out, especially from a sheriff department,” Crawford said. “They’re supposed to be professional. No. Legitimate? No. How do you get that confused?”
Wilburn echoed the frustration with the mixed messages, and has called for Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell’s resignation.
“If it were not for the camera footage, they would have lied their way right out of this,” Wilburn said.
A petition circulating online calling for the sheriff’s resignation has generated more than 2,300 signatures as of Tuesday night. A spokesperson with the county confirmed with WCIA Campbell is not resigning.