Newly surfaced video purportedly shows a Pentagon police officer — now charged with murdering two men — pointing a rifle at a homeless woman last year. The man in the footage above wearing flip flops in what seems to be an apartment building lobby is David Hall Dixon, according to sources cited by WTTG-TV reporter Evan Lambert.
The Pentagon said that Dixon was cleared of wrongdoing in the 2020 incident.
The footage surfaced as Dixon was charged with killing James Lionel Johnson, 38, and Dominique Williams, 32, and trying to kill driver Michael Thomas, 36, in Takoma Park, Maryland on Wednesday. The three victims were fleeing in a Lexus after the defendant accused them of breaking into a car, according to charging documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Dixon, who was off-duty at the time, allegedly asserted that the suspects almost ran him over, but investigators determined he opened fire after he was behind the vehicle and no longer in danger. He struck Johnson and Williams in the back.
Takoma Park police did say a vehicle was broken into at the apartment complex, but all told, it was believed Dixon’s decision to shoot could not be legally justified. Attorneys for the family of one of the victims maintained that the victims were not breaking into cars and that the vehicle in question belonged to a friend at the scene, according to NBC Washington.
Johnson’s family said he and Williams were best friends.
The Pentagon Force Protection Agency said that Dixon is on administrative leave.
The defendant faces charges of second-degree murder, use of a handgun in the commission of a felony, and reckless endangerment.
[Screengrab via Evan Lambert / @EvanLambertTV on Twitter]