By Nicholas Johnson
A 39-year-old Renton man was charged Wednesday in a Sept. 19 shooting that left one man dead and two others injured at a Circle K gas station in Kent, according to court documents.
Joseph “Dirty” Bert Dixon is charged with first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault, and unlawful possession of a firearm in King County Superior Court. He is expected to be arraigned Oct. 13, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
In filing the charges, Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brandy Gevers is asking the court to deny bail, noting that Dixon, who was released from state prison March 5, has “a well-documented history of violent crime and has 10 prior felony convictions,” according to the filing.
Dixon was arrested Monday, Sept. 27, in the parking lot of a Safeway in Clearview, Washington, after attempting to escape by ramming police vehicles and other vehicles with his own vehicle, according to court documents. At the time, Dixon had a 4-year-old child and another passenger in the vehicle with him, according to police.
Dixon, who is currently being held at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, was initially transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after SWAT officers shot him in the back while taking him into custody, according to police.
“Without warning and without provocation,” Dixon allegedly shot and killed Devon Hill as he sat in the back seat of a Cadillac SUV at about 1:18 a.m. Sept. 19 at a Circle K gas station in the 1800 block of West Meeker Street (read our previous coverage here).
Dixon also allegedly shot the SUV’s 36-year-old driver and the 23-year-old front-seat passenger, both of whom then ran from the car and collapsed before Dixon allegedly jumped into the SUV and drove off with Hill in the back seat, according to court documents.
At about 2:40 a.m., police located Hill’s body “lying face down in the gutter” along 38th Avenue South in the West Hill neighborhood. Shortly thereafter, police located the unoccupied SUV a few blocks north, according to court documents.
Days later at Harborview, the 36-year-old victim told a detective that Dixon was his friend and that “I don’t know why he did that,” according to court documents.
On the afternoon of Sept. 20, a witness told detectives that a white male who would later be identified as Dixon “had been bragging about robbing and shooting people and stealing their car” and was at a motel in Bellingham, according to court documents.
On Sept. 26, another witness who said they knew Dixon told detectives that Dixon had shown up at the motel on the afternoon of Sept. 19 and told the witness “that he needed to shower because he had blood and brains on his jeans,” according to court documents.
Dixon then laughed, the witness told detectives, and later told the witness “that he shot three black males in gas station parking lot and he thought two of them were dead.”
