State trooper Garrett Macario and his supervisor, Sgt. Matthew Morrison, no longer work for the North Carolina State Highway Patrol (SHP), a spokesperson for the agency confirmed to the INDY on Tuesday.
Recordings released last month in response to a successful petition from a coalition of media outlets, including the INDY, showed Macario chasing 31-year-old Tyrone Mason before Mason’s vehicle fatally wrecked along Capital Boulevard last October. Macario then called Morrison at the scene of the crash, and the two decided Macario would tell responding Raleigh police officers that he not been chasing Mason’s vehicle and had only happened upon the crash.
Macario and Morrison were dismissed effective June 16. In a statement, attorneys for the Mason family called the firings “a clear step in the right direction.”
The firings come after Wake County district attorney Lorrin Freeman declined to criminally charge Macario and Morrison for their actions, but the DA’s office has dismissed more than 200 cases involving the two after the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) prompted Freeman to review recordings from the crash, which was under investigation.
Last month, Mason’s mother, Henrietta Mason, filed a federal lawsuit against Macario seeking a jury trial and damages in an amount to be determined by the court. Two weeks ago, Mason and her attorneys, including the nationally known civil rights attorneys Bakari Sellers and Ben Crump and Raleigh lawyer Sean Cecil, filed a notice of claim against the Raleigh Police Department (RPD) for “significant mental and emotional damages.”
The filing states that Raleigh police told Henrietta Mason that her son “died in a traffic accident but had not been pursued by any law enforcement officer/agency.” Mason shared concerns that her son had been chased with RPD’s Investigator Spaulding, the filing continues, but the investigator told her she was wrong. This continued for months until Mason, through her attorneys, was able to obtain the recordings that showed what actually happened.
“Henrietta Mason was forced to pursue the truth herself, which included doing research, reaching out to law enforcement officials, employing attorneys, and seeking body-camera footage,” the filing states. “As a result of her sustained efforts, Henrietta Mason ultimately discovered Trooper Macario’s role in the death of Mr. Mason and his subsequent attempts to cover up such facts.”
The filing alleges that, in a May 21 meeting with Freeman, Freeman told Henrietta Mason that roughly 30 minutes after arriving on the scene of the crash, Raleigh police officers “learned the truth regarding Macario’s role in Mr. Mason’s death.”
Despite knowing the facts of what happened, the filing continues, the Raleigh police investigator and RPD “misled Henrietta Mason for months regarding the circumstances of Mr. Mason’s death, effectively gaslighting her in regard to the truth.”
The claim is seeking damages from RPD in an unspecified amount. Henrietta Mason has suffered stress, anxiety, depression, nightmares, and “feelings of isolation and heartbreak over the minimization of her son’s death and efforts to keep the Mason family in the dark,” as well as “significant pain and a lack of closure” for the Mason family, the filing states.
In a report last month in which she announced the troopers wouldn’t face charges, Freeman criticized RPD for its handling of the investigation of the crash. RPD has also faced scrutiny recently after an officer was fired for allegedly conducting illegal searches.
In their statement on Macario’s and Morrison’s dismissals, Henrietta Mason’s attorneys criticized RPD for participating in a lie, “telling a grieving mother that there was no pursuit even though they allegedly knew the truth.”
“This is one step in our journey towards justice,” they said.
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