A 17-year-old boy has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder while armed in connection with the death of 14-year-old Zytina Mason-Brown, the Clinton, Maryland girl who was fatally shot inside an apartment in the 1700 block of Benning Road NE in May 2025. The arrest, announced Wednesday, comes 15 months after her killing went unsolved and marks a dramatic reversal from how police first described her death.
Mason-Brown was shot on May 21, 2025, while reportedly filming a social media video inside the apartment, and officers were called to the scene at approximately 5:08 p.m., according to Daily Voice. She was pronounced dead at the scene, and D.C. Fire and EMS also responded. At the time, Metropolitan Police Department officers initially told news media the shooting appeared to be accidental and self-inflicted, as FOX 5 DC reported.
Mason-Brown's family rejected that explanation from the start. Relatives told the station she was an eighth grader who dreamed of becoming a beautician and a real estate agent, and they insisted from the day of the shooting that she had not shot herself. Their pushback preceded a formal reversal: the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide on August 19, 2025, according to the seed reporting.
A Second Teen Was Detained at the Scene, But Not Charged With Murder
Court and police records reviewed in the earlier reporting show a 15-year-old boy was present inside the apartment during the shooting and was arrested shortly afterward on charges of possessing an unregistered firearm and tampering with physical evidence. He was not charged with murder at that time, per the same account, though the tampering charge suggested someone had altered the scene before investigators arrived.
Following the medical examiner's homicide ruling, the Metropolitan Police Department issued a public bulletin offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction, tied to case file CCN 25-075-671. Police have not released the newly arrested 17-year-old's name. He is from Southeast D.C. and was taken into custody pursuant to a D.C. Superior Court pre-petition custody order, the legal instrument the department's Youth Investigations Branch uses to detain juvenile murder suspects before formal delinquency petitions are filed.
Benning Road NE Has a Documented History of Gun Violence
The 1700 block of Benning Road NE, where Mason-Brown was killed, has been the site of other gun violence involving young people. In June 2026, a 29-year-old man was convicted in D.C. Superior Court of first-degree murder while armed for a January 2019 shooting on the same block that left one person dead and two injured, stemming from a gang retaliation dispute, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. Hoodline has previously reported on the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Zoey Kelley inside a residence on the same block in July 2025.
Mason-Brown's arrest also lands amid a broader decline in homicides across Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department year-end data showed total homicides dropped 32% in 2025, falling from 187 to 127 and marking the city's lowest annual total in eight years. Preliminary department statistics through late August 2026 show homicides down an additional 30% year-to-date, from 102 to 71 over the same period in 2025.
Gun Assaults Still Climbing Even as Homicides Fall
An August 2026 analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice found D.C. homicides dropped 41% in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, even as gun assaults across the city rose 13% in that span. The trend has fueled ongoing civic debate: reporting by WUSA9 in June 2026 noted that anti-violence groups like Peace for DC have pushed District officials toward targeted community engagement over blanket youth curfews as a way to address gun access among young people.
The investigation into Mason-Brown's death remains ongoing, and police have not disclosed further details about the newly filed charges. Her family's insistence that she did not shoot herself, voiced publicly in the months after her death, preceded both the medical examiner's homicide ruling and Wednesday's arrest.
