Civil rights attorney Ben Crump on Friday called for the release of dash and body camera footage from the North Carolina State Highway Patrol related to the death of a 31-year-old Black man who authorities say was killed in a single-vehicle accident.
The circumstances surrounding the October death of Tyrone Mason have come into question after nearly 200 cases involving the state trooper who responded to Mason’s accident were dropped by the Wake County district attorney’s office in January.
“Let me be clear today, that we know something happened here that is more than they are telling us,” Crump said in a news conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Crump represents Mason’s mother, Henrietta Mason.
Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman placed trooper Garrett Macario and his supervisor, Sgt. Matthew Morrison, on leave after the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation asked her to further investigate the car accident, according to NBC News affiliate WRAL-TV in Raleigh.
Neither Freeman nor the highway patrol returned multiple requests for comment Friday. Morrison and Macario could not be reached.
Freeman has said that what she saw on the dash and body camera video led to a further investigation. The footage has not been released to the public.
“This is concerning to us, and it’s disturbing, but we are committed to doing things the right way,” Freeman said in January, WRAL reported. “We believe credibility among law enforcement officers is essential to the work that we do. We need and have to trust officers. Frankly, when we can’t, it’s disgusting.”
Crump said he and the Mason family want to know what is on the video that prompted Freeman to drop the cases.
“They wouldn’t have dismissed those cases if there was not something on that video, from the dash cam and the body cam that was just God awful,” Crump said. “Just show the video.”
Crump declined to comment after the news conference, but Henrietta Mason said she wants justice for her son.
“I never thought my baby would leave this world before me,” she said. “From Day 1, when they came to me and told me my son died in a single-car accident with no witnesses, I told them that is not true, someone had to be chasing my son.”
Records show Macario, 26, has been with the patrol since February 2019, and Morrison, 40, since July 2012, according to WRAL.
