Massey’s death underscores state delay in launching mental health
response program
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[August 30, 2024]
By BETH HUNDSDORFER
Capitol News Illinois
bhundsdorfer@capitolnewsillinois.com
An Illinois law intended to help people with mental illness avoid
confrontations with police had been on the books for three years when
Sonya Massey was shot by a Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputy.
The Community Emergency Services and Supports Act, or CESSA, requires
mental and behavioral health calls to 911 be handled by mental health
professionals, rather than police. It was supposed to go into effect on
July 1, 2022 – two years before Massey, who was having a mental health
crisis, was shot by Sangamon County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Grayson.
“I think if this system was in place, and emergency responders were
trained and aware of what is available to them, then I think Sonya
Massey would still be with us today,” said Candace Coleman, community
strategy specialist with Access Living, a Chicago-based organization
that advocates for disabled people.
The struggle over CESSA’s execution has twice caused lawmakers to push
back its effective date, but Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, one of the
bill’s sponsors, said Massey’s death underscores the need to carry out
reform.
“I feel confident that we are going to get this done. The state and the
advocates want to get this right,” Peters said. “And Sonya Massey is the
exactly the reason we need to get this done.”

Administrative delays
Getting CESSA up and running has been complicated by the multiple
agencies involved, according to Illinois Department of Human Services
spokesperson Rachel Otwell. Those include local law enforcement,
telecommunication services, community mental health providers, public
and private emergency medical services, and the advocates who pushed for
the reform.
In a written response to questions, Otwell said all these groups and
organizations have different ideas about how the law should work and how
their systems can best be coordinated, and each are governed by
different laws, rules and regulations.
But Massey’s case underscores the existence of ongoing failures when law
enforcement responds to calls involving those experiencing a mental
health crisis.
A 2022 study by the American Psychological Association put the number of
police calls involving a person experiencing mental illness at around 20
percent, while the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority says
it’s between 7 and 10 percent.
In Illinois, police have killed 200 people since 2015, according to
state police statistics. Of those, 31, or about 15 percent, involved a
call about a person with mental illness. The victims ranged in age from
17 to 66.
During a recorded 911 call the day before a deputy shot her daughter,
Donna Massey begged dispatchers to send help and not hurt her daughter.
She told a dispatcher she wanted no “combative” officers.
Donna Massey told the dispatcher she was afraid of her daughter driving
while in an erratic state, so she did what the counselors had told her
to do and called the police.

“I don’t want you guys to hurt her. Please,” Donna Massey said during a
two-minute 911 call made the morning of July 5.
Like Donna Massey, those with children coping with mental illness or
neurodivergence are often forced to contemplate whether calling police
is the best way to keep their loved one safe during a crisis. A study
conducted at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice published in 2021
found that that police are more than 10 times more likely to use force
against a person experiencing mental illness than a person who is not.
“Yeah, we know that there are tools out there that could change the
outcome,” Coleman, of Access Living, said. “It’s hard for people who
know that they have a mental health condition to call for help because
they fear for their lives. All that is at play; family members also fear
for their loved ones’ lives. So, this is not an easy topic at all,
because people do die.”
‘Fastest assistance possible’
In the early morning hours of July 6, Massey called 911call to report a
prowler outside her home, setting in motion the chain of events that
left Massey dead and Grayson, the officer who shot her, facing charges
of first-degree murder.
Dispatchers who sent deputies to Massey’s home that night didn’t relay
that Massey was the subject of calls to them in previous days, including
the one from her mother about her apparent mental breakdown. She told
dispatchers that her daughter was thinking that people were out to get
her, like “paranoid schizophrenic.”
While it seems the deputies sent to answer her call should have been
made aware of that, Sangamon County 911 Director Chris Mueller said in a
written statement that this is easier to see in hindsight. Massey did
not give her name when she called 911, he said, so in responding to what
looked like an emergency, no one connected the earlier call from her
mother.
“Researching each call history would take time,” Mueller said in a
written response. “The 9-1-1 system is predicated on providing the
fastest assistance possible to the caller in need. Most would not wish
delays when they call 9-1-1 to report a prowler.”
When operational, CESSA is meant to help 911 dispatchers avoid call
delays but to also identify calls involving mental health, even when a
caller does not mention mental health.
The dispatcher protocols will change to help them assess calls and
identify callers who are suicidal or in crisis and get them access to
trained professionals for help, as well as determining the speed of the
needed response, Otwell stated in a written response.
Those revised protocols are currently being tested.
The current CESSA implementation deadline is July 1, 2025, but an exact
timeline of what will happen between now and then is still up in the
air, Otwell said. Ongoing testing could require retooling the system and
retesting to work out any bugs.
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(Capitol News Illinois file photo)

Coleman said better training, destigmatizing mental illness and
improving access to care for people experiencing mental illness are all
much needed, especially downstate where there is a scarcity of
resources. Providing not only intervention, but also the necessary care
is an important part of getting help to those in crisis.
Those resources should include living rooms models, which is a house
where people in crisis can be treated by trained professionals without
an admission to a psychiatric hospital, Coleman said. Currently, there
are two such models in the lower third of the state, in East St. Louis
and Lawrenceville.
Illinois also provides a 988 number for people experiencing a mental
health crisis. The eight call centers are staffed by 114 call takers
with at least a bachelor’s degree and additional special training.
Last year, Illinois’ 988 line received over 168,000 calls.
The genesis of CESSA was the 2012 shooting of a 15-year-old Calumet City
student with Aspergers’ syndrome, a form of autism. Stephon Watts became
so upset at the prospect of going to school that his father called the
hospital, then – on the advice of a doctor and a social worker – the
police.
Five officers arrived at the home. The teen, who was 5-feet, 7-inches
tall and weighed 220 pounds, had a history of being physically combative
with both his family and police. According to press accounts, he wielded
a knife at officers, who fired at him, striking him twice and killing
him.
The day after Christmas in 2015, 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier, who was
exhibiting signs of mental illness, brandished a bat at officers who
were called to his Chicago apartment building to handle a dispute
between him and his father. Chicago police opened fire and hit him six
times. The teen was killed. So was Bettie Jones, the downstairs neighbor
who had let the officers in.
No one was criminally charged in the deaths, but the officer who fired
the fatal shots sued the city for improper training. He later dropped
his suit.
Crisis training
Since 2003, the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board
has offered a state-certified course in crisis intervention. The 40-hour
course teaches less-than-lethal tactics to deal with people with
developmental disabilities or mental illness.
According to its’ website, ILETSB has certified over 8,125 officers from
560 agencies.
Grayson, the deputy who shot Massey, was one of them.
ILETSB’s records showed Grayson received and passed the 40 hours of
crisis intervention training from March 20 to 24, 2023 – not quite 16
months before he shot an unarmed Massey in her kitchen.
Grayson and the unidentified officer who responded to the call at
Massey’s home that night were looking for a prowler, but after repeated
knocking at her door and shouting to answer, they instead found Massey
in her pajamas. She was asking for help and looking frightened and
confused while she distractedly scrolled on her phone.
In the body camera video of the call, her behavior prompted Grayson, who
was standing on her front porch, to ask if she was all right mentally.
She responded that she was taking her medicine.
That, said Chet Epperson, a use of force expert and retired Rockford
Police Chief with 33 years of experience, should have been enough to end
the call.
“There were enough reasonable cues, signs of odd, different behavior
from her. Given the training, an officer should be able to recognize
those,” Epperson said. “There doesn’t need to be a response to heighten
the tension.”
ILETSB’s crisis intervention training is meant to reduce use of force
incidents, but typically goes against the grain of traditional police
training.
“What we learn with police training and culture is control. We learn
that the cop always has to be in charge. Be the alpha,” Epperson said.
“But in mental health calls, it’s different. An officer needs to
relinquish control of the conversation. De-escalation is the goal. You
want to be patient and give them the time but then ultimately
voluntarily comply.”
In addition to training, experience, flexibility and an ability to
relinquish control of conversations lead to the peaceful end of these
crisis calls, Epperson said.

During that fatal July 6 incident, Grayson missed another opportunity to
end the call, Epperson said, when they were standing on Massey’s front
porch. The woman thanked the deputies and said she loved them.
Instead of leaving, Grayson pressed her with questions. Inside the home,
Epperson said he failed to de-escalate the situation, and he became
frustrated on her insistence in showing him “some paperwork” and her
inability to find identification.
At one point, Massey removed a pot of boiling liquid from the stove, the
video showed the other deputy moving away and Massey said, “I rebuke you
in the name of Jesus.” In response, Grayson put his hand on his
holstered gun and warned her that he would shoot her in the face.
Massey ducked behind a counter and said what would be her last words:
“I’m sorry.”
Grayson moved towards her, then fired three times. He said later in the
video that he feared Massey would throw the boiling liquid on them.
As Massey lay bleeding to death on her kitchen floor, Grayson went
outside, called back to the dispatchers and asked whether Massey was
10-96 – police code for a mental health case.
Later, when a fellow deputy asked if he was all right, he responded,
“Yeah, I’m ok. This f—ing b—h is crazy.”
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