Zytina Mason-Brown, 14, was shooting TikTok videos with friends on Benning Road when a 17-year-old boy tried to join in. She pushed him aside, and he shot her before falsely claiming she had shot herself, authorities say.
Metropolitan Police charged the boy with second-degree murder while armed in Mason-Brown’s death, the department announced. Authorities did not name the underage defendant, who was filming with her in Washington, D.C.
On May 21, 2025, Zytina, another girl, and the then-15-year-old suspect were in an apartment on the 1700 block of Benning Road in Washington, D.C.
The boy said Zytina, an eighth grader, was filming TikTok videos, adding that he had stolen his uncle’s gun and she was playing with the weapon, local ABC affiliate WJLA reported. He claimed Zytina suddenly shot herself in the head.
Police said that at about 5 p.m. that day, they responded to the apartment “for a report of a shooting.” Officers arrived to find the victim “unconscious and not breathing, suffering from a critical gunshot wound.”
First responders pronounced the victim dead. Police reportedly charged the boy with gun possession.
The case began to change in the ensuing months.
Police said that on Aug. 19, 2025, the medical examiner investigating the case determined that Zytina’s manner of death was a homicide. The evidence apparently showed that someone else had shot the girl.
Authorities reportedly said the other girl in the room came to them months after the shooting and offered a different story than she did initially. According to the witness, Zytina was indeed making videos with the gun when the suspect began to dance close to her. She allegedly shoved him off, handed him the weapon, and sat down.
Then, he allegedly sat across from her and fired the gun.
They were all at the boy’s home at the time, and his mother was also there — and knocked on the door after the gun fired, per the area TV station.
The suspect ordered the girl to be quiet, she said, and they called the police. Other people may have also been in the room, and authorities have reviewed social media messages and apparent photos of Zytina’s body in an attempt to get to the truth.
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