BAXLEY, GA (WTOC) - Jimmy Dixon Jr. looked in his son's yard for some sort of answer. He still doesn't understand why a Marine veteran who served three tours of combat in Iraq, died Sunday morning in a standoff with Appling County sheriff's deputies and members of a statewide SWAT team.



"He was wearing his Marine flak jacket (bulletproof vest), and they shot him in the carotid artery," the explained the father, a Marine who served during Vietnam. "If they'd shot him in the jacket, they would have knocked him down, but wouldn't have killed him.



Appling County Sheriff Benny DeLoach told WTOC the situation began just before 4 a.m. Sunday. Neighbors called the sheriff's department to complain that James Dixon III was shooting from his house toward theirs and had hit a nearby barn.