SHEBOYGAN – A four-day jury trial is scheduled this week in Sheboygan County Circuit Court in connection with a 2024 officer-involved shooting involving Tommie Dixon, 25, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Dixon is charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide and several repeater offenses, including felony counts of disarming a peace officer and bail jumping, a misdemeanor count of resisting or obstructing an officer, and two misdemeanor counts of bail jumping.
Court records lay out differing accounts of the encounter, with prosecutors alleging Dixon grabbed an officer’s gun and Dixon saying he acted out of fear after believing he might be shot.
What court records say about the Sheboygan officer-involved shooting
According to criminal complaints filed in September 2024 and June 2025, the Sheboygan Police Department received a call on the evening of Sept. 8, 2024, about a person waving a gun near a chiropractic office in the 1500 block of North 13th Street.
Two officers, one male and one female, responded and encountered Dixon. According to the complaints, Dixon gave officers a false name and birthdate and said he did not have identification. He also declined to provide his mother’s name because he did not want officers to contact her, the complaints said.
In an interview the following day at the hospital, Dixon told investigators he had been sitting on a bench listening to music before the encounter. He said he had been dancing and gesturing with his hands. When officers asked whether he might have been making finger-gun motions, Dixon did not deny it, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, Dixon told investigators he gave officers false identifying information because he considered himself a famous rapper and wanted to use an alias for protection. He also said he became irritated during the encounter, believed he was free to leave after the alias did not raise an issue and felt harassed by officers.
The complaint said the male officer returned to his squad car multiple times while trying to confirm Dixon’s identity and address. During one exchange, the complaint said Dixon allegedly made a comment about someone trying to distract officers so another person could kill someone. The officer asked him to clarify, the complaint said, and Dixon allegedly said someone may have called police on him to divert law enforcement.
The complaint says that when the male officer returned to his squad car again, squad camera footage showed Dixon holding the female officer’s gun while the officer was on the ground.
According to the complaint, Dixon told investigators he reached for the female officer’s gun because he was scared and did not want to be shot. He said he pushed the officer away and tried to take the weapon so she would not use it against him. He also said he pulled on the gun, causing the holster to come loose, and that he had the gun in his hand.
Dixon said he did not drop the gun because the male officer also had his weapon drawn. He said he wanted to put the gun down but was unable to do so before he was shot.
Dixon told investigators he never pointed the gun at either officer and did not intend to hurt the female officer. He said he took the weapon instead of running because he did not want to be shot, tased or sprayed.
Dixon also told investigators that if he had fully unholstered the gun, he would have used it to protect himself, according to the complaint.
The male officer believed Dixon was going to shoot at the officers, according to the complaint. Dixon’s family has said he was shot eight times by the male officer. At the time, Sheboygan police said both officers were placed on administrative leave.
Dixon was taken to a local hospital and later flown to HSHS St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay for surgery.
Dixon’s defense attorney, Ryan Dicke, declined to comment on the case.
Defense motion challenged whether Dixon voluntarily waived Miranda rights
Last fall, Dicke filed a motion to suppress statements Dixon made to investigators at the hospital the day after he was shot. Dicke argued Dixon could not have voluntarily waived his Miranda rights while recovering from multiple gunshot wounds about 20 hours after the incident.
Dicke also argued investigators misrepresented why they wanted to speak with Dixon. In the motion, he said Lt. Thomas Lichtensteiger of the West Bend Police Department suggested the investigation would move more quickly and Dixon could contact his mother if he gave a statement. According to the motion, Dixon had previously been unable to contact his mother because of the ongoing investigation. Dixon initially said he did not want to speak with law enforcement.
Dicke also argued Lichtensteiger made it seem he only wanted Dixon’s side of the story. But a Sheboygan detective was also in the room to assist with the officer-involved shooting investigation, according to the motion. Dicke argued Lichtensteiger did not make clear that the detective was also gathering potentially incriminating information.
District Attorney Joel Urmanski disputed those claims in court filings. He said Dixon was conscious and alert and that investigators did not misrepresent why they wanted to speak with him. Urmanski also said Lichtensteiger clarified whether Dixon wanted to talk after Dixon went back and forth. He said Dixon was given a note from his mother after saying he did not want to speak with police because he had not spoken with his family.
Urmanski said giving Dixon the note was “not some sort of law enforcement technique or tactic to try and benefit the investigation.”
The court filing also said Dixon had prior experience being advised of his Miranda rights in other interactions with law enforcement. Dicke said in a reply that being arrested and convicted is not the same thing as being read Miranda rights.
“While it is true that a court can consider a defendant’s prior history with law enforcement, this court should not take Mr. Dixon’s prior contacts with police to mean he is too sophisticated to be tricked by police or that he has an increased ability to resist police coercion and lying because the interaction in question was entirely different than any previous contact,” Dicke wrote in the reply.
Judge Rebecca Persick ruled in February that Dixon voluntarily waived his Miranda rights. She found he was coherent, familiar with the warning from prior cases and that the lieutenant’s conduct was appropriate.
Why Sheboygan police body camera footage has not been publicly released
Shortly after the September 2024 incident, Dixon’s family and a Chicago civil rights law firm called for SPD to immediately release body camera footage of the incident at a press conference outside the SPD station.
Despite attempts by the Sheboygan Press to obtain the body camera footage since the incident, Urmanski, SPD and the West Bend Police Department denied releasing the records, saying disclosure would interfere first with the investigation and later with Dixon’s right to a fair trial.
As a result, the body camera footage of the incident has not been publicly released.
Contact Alex Garner at 224-374-2332 or agarner@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Trial to begin in 2024 Sheboygan officer-involved shooting case
Reporting by Alex Garner, Sheboygan Press / Sheboygan Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
