Federal agents Wednesday captured in the Twin Cities the Minneapolis murder defendant who was mistakenly released two weeks ago from a county jail in Indianapolis, officials said.
Kevin L. Mason, 28, was apprehended about 1 p.m. in South St. Paul at a home in the 900 block of Summit Avenue by members of the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), the agency announced.
The agents were led to the residence "after information and surveillance led task force members to believe Mason was inside," the USMS announcement read. "Mason was taken into custody without further incident."
Eddie Frizell, the U.S. marshal for Minnesota, released a statement that praised the law enforcement personnel who "worked diligently and courageously to bring this wanted, dangerous fugitive to justice."
Mason has three active warrants for his arrest in Minnesota, including one related to a June 11, 2021, murder outside a prominent North Side church. He was charged via warrant that summer with second-degree intentional murder and illegal weapons possession in the slaying of 29-year-old Dontevius A. Catchings, of Minneapolis.
Mason, who has ties to the Indianapolis region, fled there shortly after the murder. He was arrested on Sept. 11 but set free two days later, an action that led to the firing of two Marion County employees.
Mason is charged in connection with the fatal shooting of Catchings outside Shiloh Temple on West Broadway during funeral services for 24-year-old Christopher Jones Jr., one of two men killed and one of the gunmen in a mass shooting that also injured seven outside a nightclub in downtown Minneapolis on May 22, 2021.
One mourner told police that Mason and Catchings were longtime friends, but they got into a fistfight over Mason refusing to return a gun to Catchings, charges say. All three men were thought to be part of the same street gang.
At the time of the shooting, Mason had a felony fleeing police charge pending in Hennepin County. He had been charged and convicted of armed robbery three times in the county in 2013. Investigators were unable to locate Mason after he "deleted his Facebook page and left the state."
