Tyre King

Tyre King, 13, was shot and killed by Columbus, Ohio Police Officer Bryan Mason on September 14, 2016, during a foot chase after officers responded to a report of an armed $10 robbery. Mason said King pulled a BB gun with an attached laser sight from his waistband during the chase, prompting him to fire; an older teenager who had been with King, Demetrious Braxton, later told the Columbus Dispatch that King was running away, not reaching for anything, when he was shot. A Franklin County grand jury declined to indict Mason — who had been involved in three prior fatal or use-of-force shootings before this one — in May 2017. A federal jury separately cleared Mason of civil liability in 2023, after the judge excluded testimony about Mason's history of 47 use-of-force reports in the seven years preceding King's death. No one has ever been charged in King's death.

Columbus, OH · Franklin County

• 2016: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The robbery report, the foot chase, and the shooting, per the Columbus Division of Police and Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien's public account following the grand jury proceedings.
• A BB gun with an attached laser sight, with the orange safety tip that typically distinguishes replica firearms not visible or removed, was recovered at the scene.
• Demetrious Braxton, the 19-year-old who had been with King and later pleaded guilty to the underlying robbery charge, told reporters King was running, not pulling out the BB gun, when he was shot.
• Officer Mason had been involved in three previous police shootings before King's death, including a 2012 fatal shooting for which he was cleared, and had accumulated 47 use-of-force reports in the seven years prior, per Columbus Dispatch reporting.
• A Franklin County grand jury, after a two-day proceeding involving 15 to 17 witnesses, declined to indict Mason on May 19, 2017.
• King's grandmother filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2018; a federal jury found in January 2023 that Mason did not violate King's constitutional rights, after the judge excluded testimony from a police practices expert about Mason's use-of-force history from being presented to that jury.

• Whether King was in fact reaching for the BB gun, as Mason maintained, or was simply running away, as a fellow teenager present that night stated, was disputed and never resolved by either the grand jury or the later federal civil trial.
• The full extent of what Mason's 47 prior use-of-force reports and three earlier shootings might have shown about a pattern in his conduct was not presented to the federal civil jury, since the judge excluded that evidence.
• Whether cover and concealment were reasonably available to Mason before he resorted to deadly force, as the family's use-of-force expert argued in written testimony the court did not allow him to deliver live, was never weighed by any jury.

• CNN — “Tyre King shooting: Ohio officer kills robbery suspect, 13, who had BB gun”
• Colorlines — “Grand Jury: No Charges For Cop Who Killed Tyre King”
• WOSU Public Media — “Federal jury finds Columbus officer didn't violate rights in shooting death of 13-year-old Tyre King”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs