A former Pentagon police officer who fatally shot two men in a car driving away from him in a dark parking lot outside his Maryland condo building was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday after emotional testimony from the victims’ friends and family.
“You didn’t care about anything,” Danielle Williams told the shooter, David Dixon, seated just 10 feet away inside a Montgomery County courtroom. “You took them away. You didn’t even give them a chance.”
“As an officer of the law,” added Layarnia Turner, “you’re supposed to protect and serve. Not come out here and commit heinous crimes against others.”
The hearing brought to a close a case that began 2½ years ago when Dixon — off-duty at the time — confronted three men who had driven into the parking lot in Takoma Park at 5 a.m. to break into cars. Dixon, 42, drew his gun on the car. The driver drove away from Dixon as he fired off five rounds after it had passed.
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Two passengers — Dominique Williams and James Johnson — were shot in the back and mortally wounded. The driver, Michael Thomas, drove his close friends to a hospital, shouting out their names as they lost consciousness and died within minutes.
“I really want this to be over,” Thomas said in court Thursday, the latest of several trips he has taken to the courthouse in Rockville as a key witness in the case. “Every time I come here, I relive the moments of me being in that car.”
Dixon went to trial this February on a series of charges that — had he been convicted of all of them — could have yielded a sentence of more than 100 years. But the proceedings ended in a mistrial after the jury could not reach agreement. As many as 11 jurors wanted to convict Dixon of two counts of second-degree murder, according to interviews with two of them after their deliberations. But the panel couldn’t reach a consensus as a single juror held out for lesser counts of voluntary manslaughter.
Months later, attorneys in the case reached an agreement with Dixon agreeing to plead guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree assault. Prosecutors got the benefit of avoiding the uncertainty of another trial while Dixon’s attorneys secured a 30-year limit to his sentence.
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In imposing the 25 years, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Michael Mason cited the crushing pain felt by those close to Johnson, who had three children, and Williams, who had four. “It’s just enormously apparent how serious and how big an impact this has had,” Mason said.
Thomas, the survivor who tried to save his friends by getting them to the hospital, said ideally Dixon should have gotten more time.
“I don’t feel sorry for you at all,” he told Dixon in court, prompting Mason to ask Thomas to direct his comments toward the judge’s bench, which Thomas promptly did as he turned to Mason: “Yeah, I don’t feel sorry for him at all.”
Thomas apologized to Mason for displaying his anger before saying he was done.
“It’s no problem, sir,” Mason said. “I understand. Thank you very much.”
Dixon will receive credit for the two-plus years he has been locked up since his arrest and, under state rules, become eligible for parole consideration in roughly 2033.
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Dixon spoke briefly as well Thursday, standing over a courtroom table and choking up. “I am remorseful and heartbroken about the events of that morning,” he said, “and I will live with that nightmare every day for the rest of my life.”
He apologized to the families of Williams and Johnson. “My heart aches for the pains that I’ve caused to you,” he said.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy and Assistant State’s Attorney George Simms III, who prosecuted the case, had requested the maximum 30 years.
“He executed these two men,” McCarthy said Thursday.
He also brought up two earlier incidents involving Dixon pulling a weapon on a civilian, painting him as a volatile vigilante. One event, in the lobby of Dixon’s condo building in 2020, was captured on surveillance video that was played in court Thursday.
Up early as usual, Dixon could be seen on the video walking through the lobby to take his dogs for a walk when he noticed a homeless woman — and her shopping cart — and spoke to her. Dixon left to walk the dogs. He returned and passed the woman again. Dixon then rode the elevator to his unit and came back down moments later without the dogs but with a shotgun.
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As the video showed, Dixon pointed the gun at the woman, forcing her out of the lobby. He also sprayed her with pepper spray, according to McCarthy and the video. “His conduct is terrifying,” the prosecutor said.
That incident, according to court filings, prompted the condo building management to ask Dixon in writing to no longer pull weapons on people and instead call the local police if he sees trouble.
Nine months later, prosecutors said, Dixon took it on himself to again draw a weapon on condominium building property — this time his service-issued handgun — when he confronted Williams, Johnson and Thomas.
The February trial revealed strong evidence against Dixon, centered on surveillance video that recorded an encounter outside his Takoma Park high-rise about 5 a.m. on April 7, 2021.
It showed Dixon, who was leaving for work, driving out of the parking lot and passing by an incoming sedan. Dixon then turned his car around and drove back through the lot to where the sedan had stopped. He got out of the car, gun drawn, pointing it at the car as two men scrambled back inside. In testimony at his trial, Dixon said that he suspected the men were breaking into cars — a claim backed up by trial evidence that included a broken window of a work van — and that he was trying to make an off-duty citizen’s arrest.
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The sedan backed up to get away from Dixon, and as it came to a stop to change direction, Dixon ran after it and again positioned himself in front of it with his gun pointed. The car started to move forward.
“I had a 2,000-pound vehicle come towards me,” Dixon told jurors.
But McCarthy noted to jurors that the video showed the car turning away from Dixon as it passed to his side — such that Dixon did not have to move to avoid getting hit. And it was only after the car had passed, McCarthy showed in court through the video, that Dixon opened fire.
"He stood and never moved,” McCarthy said. “This nonsense about a 2,000-pound car coming at him? If you thought a 2,000-pound car was coming at you, you would move. You would move. … How do you get past the fact his feet never moved?”
Dixon’s attorneys, William Brennan, Michael Lawlor and Adam Demetriou, had sought a sentence “significantly below” the 30-year cap. They cited Dixon’s decision to plead guilty — and accept responsibility — as well his previous 20-plus years of public service in the military and law enforcement. As a former police officer, the attorneys added, his time behind bars will be one of constant worry.
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“He will sleep with one eye open, concerned about the one inmate who wants to attack David for choosing a life of service instead of a life dedicated to himself,” the attorneys wrote in court filings.
Dixon’s father, who was in court Thursday, had echoed his son’s record of public service in a recent letter to Mason.
“I know there must be consequences for David’s actions, but I ask for grace as you sentence him,” Johnny Dixon wrote, adding, “He is more than his worst mistake.”
The elder Dixon wrote that his son is from a family of veterans, that he led a church youth group as a kid, and that he went on to serve two military tours in Afghanistan. “If he is given leniency, a lesser sentencing or an early release, he will turn his life around,” Johnny Dixon wrote. “His time in the correctional facility has humbled him and broken him.”
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