City records trace Khy’ric Mason’s fire-service employment before an arrest involving attempted murder, kidnapping, domestic assault and theft allegations.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis Fire Services employee whose city payroll history reaches back to at least 2023 faces four criminal charges after police accused him of strangling and injuring his former girlfriend inside her car as her young son and members of his family were nearby.
Khy’ric Mason, 27, was charged with attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping, domestic assault causing bodily harm and theft of property after the northeast Memphis encounter. City records independently verify his employment in Fire Services: a 2023 salary report listed Mason as a Fire Recruit, while 2024 and January 2025 records listed him as Fire Private II. The payroll documents establish his public employment but do not address the criminal allegations, and no reliable source reviewed for this article establishes that Mason has been convicted.
Mason’s occupation attracted attention because firefighters are public employees entrusted with emergency-response duties, but investigators did not describe the alleged assault as job-related. Police say the confrontation occurred during a personal relationship dispute inside a Hyundai Elantra parked outside a residence. The available reports do not indicate that Mason was on duty, in uniform, operating a city vehicle or using fire department equipment. Keeping those facts separate is necessary to avoid turning an off-duty criminal allegation into an unsupported claim about his official conduct.
The publicly available city records show that Mason’s relationship with the department predated the arrest by several years. In a July 2023 employee salary report, the city listed Khyric Mason as a Fire Recruit with Fire Services. A March 2024 record listed him as Fire Private II, reflecting advancement from the recruit position. The city’s January 2025 salary report again listed him as Fire Private II. Those official records corroborate local reporting that described Mason as a Memphis firefighter.
What the records do not show is equally important. The city salary documents are snapshots from before the alleged attack and cannot establish Mason’s employment status after his arrest. The reliable sources reviewed through Sept. 20 did not provide a confirmed fire department statement saying whether he was suspended, placed on administrative leave, terminated or otherwise disciplined. Without such a statement or current personnel record, any claim about his post-arrest employment status would be speculative.
The criminal allegations arose from an afternoon encounter involving Mason, his 25-year-old former girlfriend and her 9-year-old son. Police said the three were sitting inside the woman’s Hyundai outside a northeast Memphis home when her phone began ringing. According to an affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, Mason asked who was calling. Investigators said he became upset when the woman did not answer. Local reporting cited in the account said she had ended the relationship.
Police said Mason then told the boy to go into the residence so that he could speak with the woman. After the child left the vehicle, investigators allege Mason locked the doors. Authorities say Mason, who was in the passenger seat, reached toward the woman and put both hands around her neck. The affidavit describes him pulling and twisting her neck and attempting to drag her toward the rear seat while maintaining his hold.
The woman’s efforts to attract help became central to how the encounter ended. Police said she used the steering-wheel horn while fighting Mason and bit his finger as she tried to escape. Investigators allege Mason continued holding her by the neck and then bit her left cheek, causing a serious wound. Responding officers later reported bruising and abrasions around the woman’s chest and neck and a facial bite injury involving missing tissue. The accessible reports do not include a complete medical assessment or long-term prognosis.
The 9-year-old, after initially leaving the vehicle, returned to the car and was able to open the passenger-side door, police said. Investigators described him as trying to help his mother escape. Her screams also drew several of Mason’s relatives from the residence. According to the affidavit, those family members intervened and separated Mason from the woman. The reports do not identify the relatives or describe them as involved in the alleged attack; the police account portrays them as people who helped stop it.
After the separation, investigators say Mason took another action that produced a separate criminal allegation. Police accused him of driving away in the woman’s Hyundai without permission. That allegation became the basis for the theft charge. Hoodline, summarizing local reporting, said the property was valued between $2,500 and $10,000. Mason was later arrested and booked into the Shelby County jail, according to reports published shortly after the incident.
The attempted murder and kidnapping charges concern different alleged aspects of what happened inside the vehicle. Police tied the most serious accusation to the alleged strangulation and neck manipulation described in the affidavit, while the account of the locked doors and the woman’s inability to leave figures in the confinement allegation. Those are prosecution claims at an early stage of a criminal case. Charging documents are designed to set out probable cause and do not represent a verdict after evidence has been tested at trial.
The distinction between allegation and adjudicated fact applies to every charge. The woman’s statement, officers’ injury observations and the circumstances described by witnesses may become evidence if the case proceeds, but Mason would have an opportunity to challenge the state’s proof and present a defense. The reports reviewed do not provide a defense account of the confrontation, a statement from an attorney for Mason or information showing that a judge or jury has made findings about what occurred.
His fire department employment also raises a separate administrative question that cannot be answered from the criminal filing alone. Public employers often have personnel procedures that operate independently of criminal courts, but no specific Memphis Fire Services action should be assumed here without documentation. The sources reviewed did not establish whether the department opened an internal inquiry or what rules would apply to Mason while the charges remain unresolved.
The woman and her son were not identified by name in the reports reviewed for this article. Their identities are not needed to explain the allegations, and withholding the child’s name is particularly appropriate because he is a minor described as being present during an alleged domestic assault. Police accounts instead focus on what the child did: return to the car, open a door and try to help his mother while the confrontation was still underway.
Initial reporting said Mason was being held on $100,000 bond and was due for a bond hearing. Searches of reliable accessible material through Sept. 20 did not establish a final disposition, a conviction, a dismissal or a publicly documented plea. His public-employment history is verified, but the criminal accusations remain unresolved in the material reviewed, and Mason is presumed innocent unless proved guilty in court.
Author note: Last updated September 20, 2026.