By Guy Page
Police body camera footage published by the Caledonian-Record newspaper shows the moment Capt. Jason Gray was shot in the face twice with shotgun pellets on Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, allegedly by serial felon and drug dealer Scott Mason.
Gray managed to fire one round in return, and despite his wounds walked down the stairs into the police cruiser. Officer Jasmine Hendry drove him to the hospital. Mason escaped but was soon captured and is now in custody pending trial.
Hendry’s body cam footage includes “other moments from the chaotic scene that the now-retired Gray said deserve scrutiny for the betterment of the department,” the Caledonian-Record said in its September 26 YouTube post.
The video begins with Hendry following Gray into an apartment building at 261 Portland St. to investigate a report of domestic assault by Mason on his wife, Patrice. Patrice can be seen in a hallway, hands to her face, at the left of the photo depicting the actual moment of Gray being shot.
The six-minute, 44 second video concludes with Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital personnel wheeling Gray, stricken with pellets from two shotgun blasts, toward the NVRH emergency room.
A September 2025 Attorney General report cleared Gray of misuse of deadly force. The report offers a detailed description of what transpired.
Once inside the building, Gray began walking up a flight of stairs, followed by Hendry, when he encountered a woman who was the reported domestic assault victim. While standing just feet away from Gray, the woman pointed down a hallway which Gray turned towards. Seconds later, a gunshot sounded, and a round of pellet shot hit Gray, staggering him.
Officer Hendry ran back down the stairs, and the woman ran out of the hallway. Gray then retreated behind a doorframe, drew his firearm, and peered down the hallway to locate the shooter when a second round of pellet shot hit Gray.
During this second round of pellet shots, Gray discharged one bullet from his firearm in the direction of the shooter, but it did not strike the shooter or any other person.
Gray then collapsed from his pellet shot injuries. While on the floor, Gray saw Scott Mason, who was carrying a shotgun. Mason approached Gray and yelled, “get the [expletive] out,” before fleeing the house through a second-floor window.
Gray, who retired in April, recalled a harrowing ordeal inside a Portland Street house on “Friday the 13th,” telling the Record last week that he wasn’t sure he would make it out alive. He now lives with lasting injuries from that day, including double vision in one eye, pellet scars on his arms, nerve damage that has left his fingers and teeth numb, and an impaired voice box that makes it difficult to raise his pitch.
Mason already had a lengthy police record before the alleged shooting. In April 2024, Mason, of Portland Street, was jailed without bail by Judge Benjamin D. Battles after allegedly attacking a pregnant woman. Two weeks later, Judge Michael R. Kainen ordered his release following a weight-of-the-evidence hearing. Mason pleaded not guilty in Caledonia Superior Court to a felony charge of second-degree aggravated domestic assault with a prior conviction.
According to a police affidavit, the alleged victim told investigators that Mason punched her in front of her 3-year-old child, while she was pregnant, during what she described as a “crack rage.” In a sworn statement, she said the assault happened “because I wouldn’t give him the car keys.”
Court records show Mason has a lengthy criminal history in Vermont, including a prior conviction for domestic assault and six prior felony convictions for aggravated assault, narcotics sales, accessory before the fact, and two counts of burglary. Prosecutors charged him as a habitual offender, a designation that carried the possibility of a life sentence if convicted in the April case.