Opinion | Sonya Massey’s Killing Is Black America’s Sorrow

In the days before she was killed, Sonya Massey was having death premonitions. She kept telling her family that she was going to die, that someone was going to kill her. On July 6, a local sheriff’s deputy became the incarnation of her fears: He shot her in the face in her own kitchen.

Massey, a 36-year-old Illinois woman, had called 911 because she thought there was an intruder in her house. Two Sangamon County deputies arrived and entered her home, and one of them, Sean Grayson, began cursing at her and threatening her over a pot of boiling water that she was holding. Grayson shot her at close range as she ducked behind a counter saying she was sorry.

The Associated Press reported that according to her family, Massey had been struggling with mental illness and “had admitted herself to a 30-day inpatient program in St. Louis sometime during the week before her death, but returned two days later without explanation.”

At a news conference on Tuesday at New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church on Chicago’s West Side, Ben Crump, an attorney for Massey’s family, said “many people said she had a premonition” because when the officers arrived she repeatedly said, “Please, God,” she asked one of the officers to grab her Bible and one of the last things she said before she was shot was, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”

Among the first things Massey said when she opened the door for the officers was: “Please don’t hurt me.”