New Sonya Massey video shows officer offering help hours before fatal shooting

Sitting in the passenger's seat of her car, Sonya Massey was sobbing, fretting over her family and her two kids and the power and water being turned off at her Hoover Street home in Woodside Township, Illinois.

Massey was the subject of a 911 call shortly after 9 a.m. on July 5 made by her mother, Donna Massey, who said she was having "a mental breakdown." Massey had been staying at her mother's home on Cedar Street in nearby Springfield.

Newly released body camera footage shows Massey at one point saying, "I don't know what to do," though several suggestions have been made to help that is available.

Massey then confirmed she had her medication and was going to take it.

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The roughly 45-minute footage shows a Springfield Police officer, who had responded to a call about Massey the week before, talking to her calmly.

"(Your kids) are worried about you, too," the officer said. "They're both good. Everybody just wants you to be OK, that's all it is."

"Right now," another Springfield officer told her, "you have to take care of yourself. That's the best way for you to take care (of your kids)."

After talking to a Memorial Behavioral Health specialist, Massey drove off.

Less than 16 hours, she would be fatally shot by a Sangamon County Sheriff's deputy.

The July 6 killing of Massey has sparked a national outcry over police brutality, coast-to-coast demonstrations and a federal probe by the Department of Justice.

Body camera footage from that day shows Massey, in a thin dressing gown, apologizing to the white deputy as he drew his gun when she picked up a pan of hot water, and then said “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus” seconds before the deputy fired.

Audio of the previous day's 911 call was released earlier by Sangamon County, but two videos from body-worn cameras were recently provided to The State Journal-Register, part of the USA TODAY Network, after the newspaper put in a  Freedom of Information Act request with the city of Springfield.

While worried about some things, Massey was also effusive with her praise, thanking workers and calling them "blessed" and "beautiful."

"We're here," another Springfield officer tells her in the approximately 45-minute engagement, "to help you."

"God bless. Thank you all," Massey said. "I'm going to do what I need to do."

In the 911 call, Donna Massey said her daughter wasn't a danger to herself and "she's not a danger to me."

"I don't want you guys to hurt her, please," she said in the audio.

Springfield Police responded because Donna Massey's home was within the city. Sonya Massey's Hoover Street home is an unincorporated part of Woodside Township.

Right when officers arrived, Massey was in the front yard, pleading for her clothes, planner and medicine, among other things.

"They won't give it to me," said Massey, referring to her mother and other relatives in the home.

Inside her home, Donna Massey acknowledged her daughter's recent release from a mental facility in southern Illinois, from which she voluntarily checked out.

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Sonya, her mother told an officer, has two personalities: "a very sweet one and (then) she'll flip the script."

"I know this is not my daughter," Donna Massey added. "We just want her to be OK."

"She's sporadic," Sonya's aunt added. "I've never seen her like this. I want the old Sonya back."

Massey was seen on the video being quizzed by an emergency medical worker about what year it is and who is the president, among other questions. She answered them all correctly.

Later in the video, Massey talked to a behavioral health specialist. Other records indicated that while Massey didn't seek immediate help, she did go to HSHS St. John's Hospital later in the day "to seek treatment of her mental state" after an alleged confrontation with her neighbor.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.