Details emerge in Harrison gun case
The forthcoming issue of Gentleman's Quarterly magazine has an interview with a Philadelphia man who sued former Indianapolis Colts star receiver Marvin Harrison earlier this year, claiming he was shot by a stray bullet in 2008 as he witnessed Harrison shooting at another man's car in North Philadelphia.
The forthcoming issue of Gentleman's Quarterly magazine has an interview with a Philadelphia man who sued former Indianapolis Colts star receiver Marvin Harrison earlier this year, claiming he was shot by a stray bullet in 2008 as he witnessed Harrison shooting at another man's car in North Philadelphia.
The GQ article, which will be available online today also includes portions of a police statement from Harrison. According to the magazine, Harrison told Philadelphia police that a Belgian-made handgun he owned never left his possession or his safe. At the time of the shooting, police said shell casings were found near the scene that matched the gun.
Now in prison on a misdemeanor drug charge, Robert Nixon told GQ he had initially told police he hadn't seen anything after the shooting in North Philadelphia. He didn't tell police, he said, that he actually had a bullet in his own back after the shooting, or that he had seen Harrison and one of Harrison's employees hitting the man minutes before the shooting.
Denying that he fired the shots that hit Nixon or Dwight Dixon, the man in the car, Harrison told police he had an altercation with Dixon just before the shooting, the magazine reported.
"I walked down and asked him why he was continually threatening me and coming to my businesses and harassing my employees," Harrison said in his statement to police, according to GQ. "He said, 'I'm a grown man, I can do and go wherever I want and say what I want. . . and like I said, I will [expletive] you up and [expletive] your bar up. . . NOW WHAT!;' He put his hands up and swung at me. He grazed me on my left shoulder and chin. I swung back and I missed.
"We wrestled and threw punches a little bit. . . I then walked up the street back to my garage, I guess, like five minutes later, he backs up the street to in front of my car wash. Gets on the phone and is saying, 'Get your guns. . . I'm gonna [expletive] you up MARV. . . you ain't no Gangster." I told him that I wasn't a gangster but that he couldn't keep coming back to my place of business and threaten me and start trouble. He drove off down the street. I was inside the garage. I heard gunshots like right after that."
Asked to confirm whether the comments were from Harrison's police statement, police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said yesterday in an e-mail, "I cannot comment nor do I have knowledge of the actual statement given by a witness. Mr. Harrison was interviewed as part of the shooting investigation, but no one was charged with the shooting. The case remains active."
Harrison could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Jerome Brown, declined comment.
Dixon had claimed that Harrison shot him in one hand during the altercation April 29, 2008, at 25th and Thompson Streets in North Philadelphia. Harrison owns several small businesses in the area, including Chuckie's Garage, a car wash, and Playmakers, a nightclub.
Dixon died last September at Hahnemann University Hospital of gunshot wounds sustained in an incident last July. Police said an unknown gunman approached Dixon on the 2800 block of Girard Avenue about 11 a.m. and peppered him with bullets.
After the April 2008 shooting, GQ reported, Harrison told police that the fight with Dixon took place "five to 10 minutes before" the shooting. He also answered "no" when asked by detectives if Dixon had a gun that day. Also in the statement were questions about the gun that was determined to fire the shots.
Question: When was the last time you or anyone else fired your FN 5.7-caliber handgun?
Answer: Probably the day that I bought it.
Q: What day was that?
A: In 2006 or 2007.
Q: Where do you store this weapon?
A: In a safe at my home in Jenkintown, Pa.
Q: Today, you had it at the car wash? Do you know how it got there?
A: I brought it today, 20 minutes before you came.
Q: Are you saying that the 5.7-cal handgun that you own was in the safe at your home up until today, when you decided to bring it to your shop in the 2500 block of Thompson St.?
A: Yes.
Last January, Lynne M. Abraham, then Philadelphia's district attorney, announced that she would not proceed with the criminal probe of the shooting of Dixon, a convicted felon, by a gun owned by Harrison. Abraham said the reason for not filing charges was "multiple, mutually exclusive, inherently untrustworthy, and sometimes false statements by the people present."
Abraham couldn't be reached for comment last night.
Here is a link to the GQ story: