The US Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation of Illinois’ Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office four months after a deputy fatally shot Sonya Massey while responding to her call about a possible prowler outside the 36-year-old Black woman’s home.

The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the killing of Sonya Massey, a Black woman shot by a white police officer in July after calling to report a prowler outside her home. In a letter to Illinois’ Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office,

The government made a list of demands in dozens of categories in a letter Thursday to the Sangamon County Sheriff's Office.

The Justice Department notified Sangamon County, Ill., that it had opened a civil rights investigation after reports about the shooting raised “serious concerns.”

The Justice Department is opening a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of an Illinois woman inside her own home by a sheriff's deputy. Sonya Massey, 36, was killed by former Sangamon County deputy Sean Grayson in July amid an exchange over a pot of boiling water.