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Source: Victim said Harrison hired gunman

Police still don't know who shot and critically wounded Dwight Dixon in Fairmount on Tuesday, but Dixon apparently had one person in mind.

Dwight Dixon looks up from under his jacket after exiting the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia on Jan. 28, 2009. (AP File Photo)
Dwight Dixon looks up from under his jacket after exiting the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia on Jan. 28, 2009. (AP File Photo)Read more

Police still don't know who shot and critically wounded Dwight Dixon in Fairmount on Tuesday, but Dixon apparently had one person in mind.

Moments after a gunman riddled Dixon with seven bullets, the bloodied 33-year-old told a police officer he believed the gunman had been hired by NFL star Marvin Harrison, said a law-enforcement source close to the investigation.

Harrison isn't a suspect in the shooting, and investigators have not found evidence to link him to the incident, the source noted.

Police "won't know what made him say that until he wakes up," the source said.

Dixon - who last year claimed that he had been shot by Harrison following a fistfight in North Philadelphia - has been heavily sedated since Tuesday, when doctors at Hahnemann University Hospital spent 10 hours operating on him.

Police officials released surveillance images Thursday that show the man who shot Dixon fleeing the scene moments after he opened fire on Dixon's Toyota Camry on Girard Avenue near 28th Street.

Dixon was wounded in the chest, stomach and arm, police said.

The gunman's face isn't clear in any of the four surveillance images captured by cameras affixed to the front of a Valu-Plus on Girard Avenue.

The triggerman is shown running with his head lowered, clad in a dark hooded sweatshirt, jeans and white sneakers.

The shooting occurred just two blocks away from Playmakers, a club Harrison owns. Investigators have not yet spoken with Harrison, the source said.

Harrison's agent, Tom Condon, could not be reached for comment Thursday night.

Dixon and Harrison argued at Playmakers a few weeks before April 29, 2008, the night Dixon claimed that the former Indianapolis Colt star shot him in the left hand near a garage Harrison owns on Thompson Street near 25th.

Another man, Robert Nixon, told police he witnessed the shooting and claimed he was shot in the back by Harrison as he tried to run away.

A police investigation found that five bullets had been fired from a gun Harrison owns. The District Attorney's Office declined to press charges because Dixon, Nixon and other witnesses told prosecutors nine different versions of the incident.

Dixon filed a civil lawsuit against Harrison last fall. Nixon planned to file a civil suit against Harrison this week, his attorney told the Daily News on Wednesday.