'It's serious': Dramatic police response after man tricked squeegee workers into truck, shot them
BALTIMORE - An alleged robbery by squeegee workers led a Baltimore man to trick three window washers to help him move things in West Baltimore, where he opened fire.
Two young men, a 17-year-old and 23-year-old, were injured in the May 19 shooting.
Authorities last month charged Zhamiel Dixon, 26, with first-degree assault and two counts each of attempted first- and second-degree murder, along with several handgun violations.
"I heard the shots and came outside," a neighbor recalled.
He went to the alley behind his house and found two victims suffering from gunshot sounds and quickly called police.
"I called them and told them we have a kid here in the yard and he's bleeding out of his head, he's been shot in the head," he said.
Once on the scene, police found a second victim a few feet away. One was shot in the head, the other in the neck. A third person was able to run away.
WJZ obtained sound of the dramatic moments when officers found the two squeegee workers injured.
"I can't tell, it's pretty bad, right to the throat," an officer responded.
According to charging documents, two men and a teenager were squeegeeing at the intersection of Moravia Road and Sinclair Lane in May when Dixon pulled up in his black Dodge pickup truck. Dixon then offered hundreds of dollars for help moving stuff from one house to another.
The squeegee workers agreed, got into the truck, and then drove to the home in the 2400 block of Edmondson Avenue. There, Dixon reportedly asked, "Who did this to my mom? Who took the money the other day?"
Then he started shooting.
"We got one down," an officer is heard saying over the scanner.
Moments later, another officer said, "I got another one down. I got another one down in the alley over here."
"When you get a chance let me know how serious it is," an officer said.
"It's serious," another replied.
The day before the shooting, Dixon's mother told officers she was stopped at a red light on Hillen Road when she was approached by three squeegee workers. When Dixon's mother told them she didn't have any cash, the squeegee workers asked for her Cash App, according to charging documents.
She gave them her phone and the squeegee workers transferred $2,200, according to charging documents.
"Why would she give them the phone? I mean you don't do that," said Esther, who lives in Northeast Baltimore near where Dixon picked up the group of squeegee workers. She said she's seen workers at that intersection before, but has never given them money.
Police said they found Dixon through surveillance video that caught his car's license plate number during the shooting, which they traced to him.
