Man sentenced to five years for ’19 drive-by
One of four suspects involved in a drive-by shooting last summer was sentenced to five years in prison Monday after pleading guilty in Garland County Circuit Court.
Montez Saquan Dixon, 25, who has remained in custody since his arrest Aug. 15 in lieu of $100,000 bond, pleaded guilty to one count of committing a terroristic act, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and was
sentenced to five years and ordered to pay $440 in court costs. An additional felony charge of possession of a defaced firearm was withdrawn.
According to the probable cause affidavit, on Aug. 1, shortly before 8 p.m., a residence in the 1600 block of West St. Louis Street was struck by gunfire from a driveby shooting. Two men, a woman and three juvenile children were inside the residence at the time, but no one was injured.
The house was struck six times by gunfire and a black 2010 Ford
Escape parked in the front yard was struck one time. Officers located 10 spent .22-caliber cartridge casings in the street stretching from 1611 to 1605 W. St. Louis. They also found one 9-mm cartridge that had not been fired in the street in the same area.
One of the residences had several exterior security cameras and the video showed a black male walking up to the residence that was later shot and knocking on the door. The male then started walking up the street where he met up with a second male, later identified as Dixon, who was walking from the other direction.
A black Dodge SUV pulled into a nearby driveway and two other people got out and met up with Dixon and the first man. All four suspects then started walking back toward the house that was shot. At that point, one of the occupants of the house came outside and there was a verbal exchange between him and the four others.
At one point, Dixon and one of the other three people both pulled out handguns and Dixon could be seen racking the slide of his gun and ejecting the 9-mm cartridge that was later recovered. Suddenly, all four suspects “take off running” back up the block, the affidavit said.
Dixon pointed his gun back toward the house and fired one time. The four got into the Dodge and drove past the house and the second man with a gun fired at the house several times from the back seat.
Earlier that same day, around 10:45 a.m., Dixon was arrested on unrelated charges and placed in an interview room at the Hot Springs
Police Department. A recording from the room shows he was wearing “a distinguishing pair of white pants with a blue stripe on the side of both pant legs and a multicolor design on the lower legs.”
After being processed, Dixon was taken to the detention center where he bonded out on the unrelated charges around 2:50 p.m. Detective Shawn Stillian reviewed the video from the interview room and was able to positively identify Dixon as the one seen in the later video firing at the house. A warrant was later issued for his arrest.