A Black North Carolina mother who helped expose a state trooper’s cover-up of her son’s fatal crash secured a $200,000 settlement after refusing to accept the account police initially gave her.
Two Raleigh police officers knocked on Henrietta Mason’s door around 3 a.m. on Oct. 7, 2024, about 30 minutes after the crash. They told her that her 31-year-old son, Tyrone Mason, had died in a single-car wreck with no witnesses, she recalled.
She immediately questioned their explanation.
Henrietta Mason, pictured in the middle, exposed a police cover-up of the death of her son, Tyrone Mason, pictured bottom left, who died under mysterious circumstances in an incident involving North Carolina state troopers Garrett Macario, top left, and Matthew Morrison, bottom left, resulting in a $200,000 settlement. (Photo: YouTube)
“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,” she told WRAL in March 2025.
Her persistence helped trigger an investigation that exposed Trooper Garrett Macario’s attempted traffic stop and his supervisor’s instructions to conceal it from responding officers.
Macario attempted to stop Mason after allegedly observing him driving 70 mph in a 40-mph zone.
North Carolina District Attorney Dismisses 180 Cases Involving Two White Officers
Police said Mason accelerated to about 100 mph. Macario switched off his lights and siren before Mason crashed into a concrete pillar beneath an overpass on Capital Boulevard.
After reaching the wreck, Macario called his supervisor, Sgt. Matthew Morrison. His body camera captured their conversation.
“I wouldn’t mention anything to them about you trying to stop him,” Morrison said.
“I won’t,” Macario replied.
“Just say, ‘Hey man, I drove up on this’ and leave it at that,” Morrison said.
Macario then denied attempting to stop Mason when a Raleigh officer asked whether he had been pulling him over, according to the lawsuit Henrietta later filed.
“This is just the little area I work, and I came up on it, and I saw all the smoke and heard all the cars hitting the debris,” Macario said.
Henrietta and her children searched businesses near the crash site for surveillance footage. Business owners told them the recordings automatically erase.
In early November, about a month after the crash, James Jaime approached Tyrone’s girlfriend at a restaurant and shared what he had heard that night. He said he had been waiting for an Uber nearby when he heard a siren, accelerating cars, and a crash.
Henrietta contacted Jaime and took him to Raleigh police headquarters, where he signed a statement. She also sought help from elected officials, the NAACP, and internal affairs investigators.
“I kept running into a brick wall,” she recalled, according to The News & Observer.
In December, a Highway Patrol supervisor told her that Macario had admitted to trying to stop her son. Henrietta emailed the State Bureau of Investigation on Dec. 23 with her concerns and supporting documents. The agency contacted Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman.
With attorney Sean Cecil’s help, Henrietta obtained access to the Highway Patrol footage. She watched it at home with her children on Jan. 31, 2025.
“If I didn’t know my child and know that something wasn’t right from the beginning, they would have gotten away with it,” she said.
After reviewing police recordings, Freeman dismissed almost 200 cases involving Macario and Morrison because of concerns about their credibility.
Henrietta filed her federal lawsuit against Macario on May 21, 2025. Authorities publicly released footage two days later, following a judge’s order.
The claim accused Macario of violating Tyrone’s civil rights by initiating a dangerous pursuit that caused his fatal crash and failing to render aid afterward.
It also alleged that he followed Morrison’s instructions to conceal the attempted stop. Morrison was not a defendant.
The lawsuit described Macario’s decision to pursue Mason, despite knowing the danger, and his subsequent concealment as “conduct that shocks the conscience.”
“Plaintiff was forced to investigate the circumstances surrounding Decedent Mason’s death, which included sending hundreds of emails to various government agencies, hiring an attorney, and taking her concerns to the Wake County District Attorney,” the claim states.
The Highway Patrol fired both men in June 2025. Freeman declined to bring criminal charges, concluding that the evidence would not support a successful prosecution despite their dishonesty.
A judge approved the $200,000 settlement in July, and it became public in August.
“Hopefully, the North Carolina Highway Patrol will create policy changes in remembrance of and in response to the Mason death, centering on changes to their high-speed chase policy, their investigatory policy, their transparency, and very fundamentally, not lying to the constituents they’re supposed to protect and serve,” Bakari Sellers, one of the family’s attorneys, told local media after news of the settlement became public.
