Who used Harrison’s gun remains mystery

The eight-month-old North Philadelphia mystery of who shot convicted felon Dwight Dixon with a gun belonging to Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Marvin Harrison will likely remain unsolved, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham announced this morning.

And the blame, Abraham said, rests with Harrison, Dixon and three others who she said have provided “mutually exclusive” and contradictory accounts of the April 29 shooting and have resisted efforts at clarification.

"We're not foolish," Abraham told reporters at an news conference in her Center City office. "But knowing what happened and proving what happened are two different things."

"How do I prove my case?" Abraham added. "With these witnesses? I don't think so."

Abraham said the only thing her prosectuors can do is await the sworn deposition of Harrison, Dixon and others in a civil lawsuit filed last year by Dixon against Harrison seeking $100,000 in damages.

Harrison has denied shooting Dixon, who was wounded in the hand, and Abraham said the former Roman Catholic High School footballer has maintained that his gun - an unusual, Belgian-made 5.7 mm semiautomatic pistol - has never been fired since he bought it about two years before the April 29 incident.

"We're confident of our police ballistics report," Abraham said, referring to tests that she said prove the bullet that wounded Dixon came from Harrison's gun.

Police have said the shooting, outside Harrison's Chuckie's Garage at 25th and Thompson Streets, was the culmination of a feud that began two weeks earlier when Harrison, 36, refused to admit Dixon, 32, into his nearby Playmakers bar. Both are businesses he owns in North Philadelphia.

"At this point, we have nobody," Abraham said. "We don't have anybody who will say they saw anybody fire a gun at anyone."

Dixon had previously been convicted of theft as a teenager, and was sentenced to 5-to-10 years in 2000 on a drug possession charge.