Victim’s family demands justice after video shows trooper lying about fatal police chase

Following the release of a video showing a North Carolina state trooper and his supervisor agreeing to lie about the police chase that led to the death of Tyrone Mason, attorneys for the family demanded they be fired for their actions.

Renowned civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Bakari Sellers also condemned Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman Thursday after a report from her office indicated she would not seek criminal charges against the troopers despite footage showing State Trooper Garrett Macario denying that he pursued Mason — a false account that was relayed to Mason’s mother.

Crump and Sellers had been pushing for the release of the footage surrounding Mason’s fatal crash in the early morning hours of Oct. 7, 2024 for months. A Wake County Superior Court judge ordered it to be made public on May 16 following a lawsuit that included several newsrooms seeking the videos.

“Now you got the video evidence in your hand, and you refuse to file charges against the killer cops,” Crump told members of the media outside the Wake County Courthouse. “She’s slapping us in our face because she says, ‘I don’t care what evidence you have, it doesn’t matter, I’m still going to take the cop’s word over whatever evidence you have.’”

In an interview Thursday afternoon, Freeman pushed back on these assertions and said Mason’s family and their attorneys are welcome to review the full investigative findings. Though her office declined to prosecute, her office dropped more than 180 cases that would have relied on testimony from the state troopers.

“One of the reasons I opened up this investigation to begin with is that I believe that Mrs. Mason, who had been given the runaround for months, deserved to have the answers of what happened to her son that night,” Freeman said.

A piece of common ground between the Mason family attorneys and Freeman: a belief that the highway patrolmen involved should lose their jobs for misconduct. “I do not believe that these officers should be in law enforcement,” she said.

Henrietta Mason, the mother of Tyrone Mason, brought a civil rights lawsuit against Macario on May 21, citing the false claims about the crash and a failure to render timely aid, which attorneys for the family believe could have saved his life.

“Miss Freeman, you told me to my face you was on my side. You told me you was on my side. But no, you’re on the side of the state troopers, the men that lied,” she said at the press conference. “If they did this to my baby, how many other babies have they did this to?”

‘A bad chase’

In footage released by the State Highway Patrol and Raleigh Police Department, Macario and his supervisor, Sgt. Matthew Morrison, can be heard creating the false account of events, which Macario then relays to Raleigh police.

The footage, which includes both dash camera video from the trooper’s cruiser and body camera video after arriving on the scene, shows Macario pursuing Mason until he crashes into a concrete barrier, around which point Macario appears to turn off his emergency lights and return to the scene from the other direction. Macario said on the call that he “did not feel it was a safe chase.”

“I wouldn’t mention anything to them about you trying to stop him,” Morrison can be heard saying on the call with Macario. “Just say, ‘Hey, man, I drove up on this,’ and leave it at that.”

Five minutes after the call with his supervisor, Macario can be seen on the RPD footage relaying that version of the narrative to officers who subsequently arrived on the scene.

“Were you like pulling him over or something?” Raleigh police officer R. Urena asks in the footage.

“No, this is a little area I work,” Macario answers. “I came up on him and I saw the smoke and heard all the cars hitting the debris.”

That account was then given by Raleigh Police to Henrietta Mason when they informed her of her son’s death — a lie that only unraveled when a witness came forward to tell her he heard the police pursuit, including the deactivation of the trooper’s siren at roughly the same time as the crash.

“You got a video of the officer lying through his teeth,” Crump said. “Not only is he lying, but he’s conspiring — they are conspiring to cover up the crime. They conspire and say, you know, ‘I was chasing him,’ his supervisor says, ‘Well, you don’t want to admit that.’”

Sellers, the lead attorney for the family, said he was also disturbed by Macario’s failure to attempt to render aid to Tyrone Mason. Though Macario witnesses the crash and calls his supervisor immediately afterward, no one checks on Mason’s status until six minutes after it occurs, when Urena and another officer knock on the window and open the driver’s side door.

“We’re not just talking about the lie. We’re not just talking about the obstruction,” Sellers said. “We’re talking about a bad chase and bad policies and bad procedures. We’re talking about a refusal to render aid. We’re talking about the fact that this county lied to this woman month after month after month after month.”

‘The evidence would not support a successful prosecution’

In her report declining to prosecute the troopers, however, district attorney Freeman — who announced earlier this month that she would not seek reelection in 2026 — wrote that while “inexcusable,” Macario and Morrison’s actions do not rise to the level of criminal conduct.

“While their dishonesty violates the standards to which law enforcement officers must adhere, the District Attorney is not pursuing criminal charges as the evidence would not support a successful prosecution,” she wrote. “The District Attorney has shared her concerns about their conduct with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol who has the authority to decide whether they will remain employed.”

According to Freeman’s report, released May 21, Macario subsequently gave a truthful account of the chase to two other members of the Raleigh Police, who confirmed he did so when interviewed. Though there is video footage of Macario speaking with one of the officers who said he told the truth, no audio of that conversation exists. But this account never made it to Henrietta Mason, as the investigator in the case only received the earlier statement.

“[Macario’s] subsequent truthful statements within the relevant time frame prevent the State from being able to move forward with a successful prosecution,” Freeman wrote. “Moreover, evidence would tend to suggest that Sergeant Morrison’s and Trooper Macario’s intent in initially not disclosing the effort to stop Mr. Mason was to keep them from having to manage the crash scene and do the crash reconstruction investigation.”

That conclusion, she said, is evidenced by Morrison’s remark on the video that “it sounds like Raleigh’s problem.”

Henrietta Mason and her attorneys were not satisfied with this outcome, and supporters of the family made Freeman one of the primary targets of their ire at the press conference Thursday. “Lorrin Freeman, Tyrone’s blood is on your hands too!” one demonstrator’s sign read.

“Let me get this straight: You’re going to take the word of a liar, the person you knew just lied, you don’t got no evidence of what he’s saying now, but you’re going to take his word?” Crump asked. “I don’t ever profess to be the smartest guy in the room, but that logic just ain’t logical.”

Freeman said in an interview that while initially, “we were skeptical ourselves” when members of the Raleigh Police came forward to attest that Macario gave them an accurate version of events, there was sufficient evidence to support it, including notes from the night of the crash by a Wake County forensic investigator. In those notes, the investigator records the officer who came forward informing her that a trooper attempted to stop Tyrone Mason prior to the crash.

“We went to great lengths — and that was part of what took so much time in this investigation — to try to nail that down,” Freeman said. “Part of that was finding through the course of that information that shows that Trooper Macario basically tells different stories to different people on the scene.”

‘Justice for Tyrone Mason’

Despite the lack of a criminal prosecution, Sellers and Crump vowed to continue pursuing justice for Tyrone Mason and his family through the courts, primarily through the ongoing lawsuit against Macario.

Sellers said the revelation of “how grossly negligent the Raleigh Police Department has been” means that they may pursue legal action against them as well. He told members of the media Thursday that they will be filing a notice of claim against RPD, which is a prerequisite for seeking damages.

The Raleigh Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations. Sellers said Raleigh Police Chief Rico Boyce offered to meet with Henrietta Mason, but she and her attorneys declined in light of the meeting with the district attorney.

In her report, Freeman wrote that she relayed concerns over handling of the incident to both the State Highway Patrol and the Raleigh Police Department, and is also providing the findings to the North Carolina Criminal Justice Training and Standards Division, the body that certifies members of law enforcement.

The State Highway Patrol is also still pursuing an internal review of the crash and aftermath, and Macario and Morrison remain on administrative leave, according to Department of Public Safety spokesperson Christopher Knox, who called Mason’s death a “heartbreaking occurrence.”

“We do recognize and take ownership that words spoken and captured by video in the moments after the collision’s occurrence do not reflect the high standards we place upon our members nor the lifesaving work that we see them carry out daily,” Knox wrote. “We do believe, however, that this collision was a result of Mr. Mason’s actions alone and that is reflected in the unbiased collision report completed by the Raleigh Police Department.”

Rev. Gregory Drumwright, an activist with Justice 4 the Next Generation who prayed over the press conference, said in his view, this case has “redefined what the purpose of police wearing body-worn cameras is.”

“Somebody tell me, if we are not going to use as evidence the truth, transparency, and undisputable facts that audio and video presents, then what is the purpose of body-worn cameras in the first place?” Drumwright asked. “Why did they have the cameras on if they can lie thinking the cameras is off and still get away with their lies?”

Also speaking in support of the family’s efforts was state Sen. Natalie Murdock (D-Durham), who said she plans to use her position to push for greater oversight and probe more deeply into the circumstances of the case.

“We have a right to make a justice system that was not built for us to see us, hear us, and hold it accountable,” Murdock said. “We will continue to ensure that Tyrone Mason gets the justice that he deserves. His life mattered and had value, and we will continue to lift up his name.”

In addition to law enforcement, Sellers expressed disappointment in top elected officials for not putting their weight behind the case. Calling Governor Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson “two very good friends” of his, he lamented that neither had spoken out about Tyrone Mason’s death. “Their silence is not just deafening, but their silence is acquiescence,” he said.

Spokespeople for Jackson and Stein did not respond to requests for comment.

Crump said all Henrietta Mason is seeking is “simple justice,” something that should not require such extreme lengths to receive.

“We always believed that if we had it on video where they could see it and hear it, that Black people would have a chance at equal justice,” Crump said. “Don’t say no more, look at the video — and that’s our case.”

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