The trial of an off-duty Pentagon officer charged with fatally shooting two men in Takoma Park last year is now scheduled for February 2023, according to State’s Attorney John McCarthy.
David Hall Dixon, now 41, was charged with shooting and killing Dominique Williams, 32, of Hyattsville and James Lionel Johnson, 38, of District Heights in the parking lot of the Takoma Overlook Condominiums on New Hampshire Avenue on April 7, 2021.
Dixon told Takoma Park police at the time that he saw people in a Lexus that day and someone tried to break into another vehicle. Dixon told police that when he confronted the group that was trying to break into the vehicle, the Lexus driver tried to run him over and he fired multiple shots.
Authorities have said that surveillance video shows Dixon firing multiple rounds from behind the Lexus as it was leaving.
Michael Thomas of Washington, D.C., drove Johnson and Williams to a hospital where they later died, police have said. Thomas, who survived, was not charged.
A few weeks after the shootings, McCarthy announced that Dixon had been indicted on charges of murder and attempted murder.
Dixon’s trial was scheduled to start next week, but McCarthy told Bethesda Beat on Thursday that it was continued to February because one of Dixon’s attorney’s has contracted COVID-19, and another is involved in a federal case.
“It’s a complex federal matter where a judge did not release him from going to the trial,” McCarthy said of the one attorney.
McCarthy said Judge Michael Mason will come out of retirement to preside over the trial.
Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@bethesdamagazine.com