Update: Girlfriend beaten by Syracuse cop speaks out: ‘My suffering soon became his safety’

Syracuse, NY — Syracuse police officer Ahmad Mims revealed himself as a loose cannon in a series of attacks on his girlfriend last summer.

He put a gun to her head one time. Another time, Mims punched her in the head and ribs, sending blood spattering onto a window. He pleaded to menacing and assault.

But Mims’ anger management and judgment came into question a year earlier in an episode familiar to his bosses in the police department.

Mims fired five shots at a fleeing minivan carrying three children — ages 4, 2 and 1 — in the backseat. Two shots hit the van as it drove away, but none touched the kids or the driver, records show.

It started as a routine traffic check of a guy who stopped in the street to order food from a Pizza Hut, and it escalated crazily into a high-speed chase at up to 100 mph, a defense lawyer and police said.

City Hall won’t answer questions about Mims’ conduct. That job fell to the police union and Mims’ lawyer, who defend Mims’ work that day in April 2017. They say he wasn’t disciplined.

Still, the dangerous episode, revealed in hundreds of pages of records and videos reviewed by The Post-Standard | Syracuse.com, attracted someone’s attention in the department.

After that and other similar experiences, the Syracuse police forbade officers from shooting at moving vehicles, police union president Jeff Piedmonte said.

It was about time, says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank advising police departments nationwide.

“Shooting at a vehicle from behind is severely frowned upon unless you have reason to believe this person is about to commit a violent felony,” Wexler said. “Would failure to apprehend him result in some violent action?”

The van’s driver was unarmed, with two baggies of marijuana, when caught seven miles away, records show.

After shooting at the van, Mims remained on the job until his arrests last year.

He was first arrested in September for violently abusing his girlfriend. She accused him of drunkenly holding her at gunpoint in Cicero. When she escaped, he ran her down, put her in a headlock and dragged her back, she told police.

Weeks later, in Lake George, she tried to jump from a moving vehicle and he pulled her back, punching her in the head and ribs, sending blood spattering onto a window, according to a criminal complaint.

Mims’s lawyer expects he will get probation when sentenced Thursday in Cicero and Lake George. Mims now lives in North Carolina.

Mims resigned from the force in January after pleading guilty to assault and menacing in connection with the arrests in Cicero and Lake George. His credibility trashed, the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office decided not to call him as a witness in any of the cases he made.

Mims was part of the police department’s high-profile Crime Reduction Team -- tackling drugs, guns and gangs.

A standout athlete at Cicero-North Syracuse High School, Mims was a 6-foot, 4-inch forward on Oswego State’s basketball team in 2005-06. His tattooed nickname, “Slinks,” refers to his athletic build and prowess. He then got hired by Syracuse police, becoming a poster child for the department’s recruitment efforts.

His job? Hit crime spots and look for any reason to question people who officers expected were up to no good.

Confusion, mistrust and fear

That fits Peter Dixon, 35, who had three kids in his van April 24, 2017. He’d been in prison for an illegal gun and is going back after another drug arrest.

The traffic stop started routinely. Three officers, working for the CRT, accused Dixon of parking on the wrong side of the street and too far from the curb.

It was a legal tactic ultimately designed to check Dixon for drugs or guns. Dixon had pulled over across from a known drug house.

Syracuse Police investigate the scene on Geddes Street near Hartson Street early Saturday evening, April 22, 2017. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com SYR

Dixon maintained – and was confirmed by phone records – that he was calling in an order to Pizza Hut, said his lawyer, Ken Moynihan.

Things escalated quickly, with confusion, mistrust and fear raging on both sides.

Mims wanted Dixon to roll down his window. But the driver’s window was covered in a piece of plastic taped to the frame. There was no window to roll down.

Mims wanted Dixon to open the door. Dixon did not.

Fellow officers described Dixon as panicky and moving his hands suspiciously. There was cash and a baggie in the front console, they said.

Dixon told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard later in a jailhouse interview that he was upset that he was being questioned. He maintained there was no baggie on the console. He said he didn’t hear Mims through the plastic.

Officers said the plastic was heavily tinted. Dixon refused orders to keep his hands in plain sight, officers testified later, heightening concerns he was hiding drugs or reaching for a weapon.

When Dixon refused to open the door, Mims pulled out his gun and pointed it at Dixon.

“Officer Mims … drew his firearm and told (Dixon) to keep his hands up and he did initially comply,” Officer Jacob Breen told a grand jury. “We just told him to kind of calmly come out of the vehicle … He told us that he was afraid to get out of the car because Officer Mims had pointed a gun at him.”

Dixon thought he’d be shot if he moved, he later told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard. He said he kept his hands in sight.

“So Officer Mims actually re-holstered his weapon,” Breen continued. Mims “showed him, ‘Listen, I put my gun away. Just come out of the car, come out of the vehicle,’ but he still wasn’t listening or responding, just kept reaching all over the vehicle.”

Mims decided to pull Dixon from the van.

Mims punched out the plastic over the window opening, an event captured on cell phone video shot from a nearby residence. (See video above.)

Dixon said later that he panicked. He gunned the van in reverse for a block, then turned -- still in reverse -- onto South Geddes Street.

Mims and the other two officers radioed for help and jumped back in their car. A second police car joined the chase.

As Dixon continued driving in reverse on the busy street, he spun the van, hitting the front of the second police car, evidence shows. That brought the van to a momentary stop.

Mims and the other officers in his car caught up to Dixon at South Geddes and Hartson streets.

There, Dixon gunned the engine again in reverse, police testified.

Mims jumped out of his police car to confront the fleeing driver again, Breen said. Breen yelled at Mims to stay in the car, according to Breen’s report.

The van was still going in reverse toward Mims, fellow officers testified. Mims dived over a patrol car hood to get out of Dixon’s way, Breen testified.

Dixon’s van brushed one of Mims’ pant legs, according to evidence collected later. Mims was not injured, records show.

Dixon then pointed his van south down Geddes Street, police said.

Fellow officers testified that Dixon appeared to be driving back toward Mims again. Dixon said he was trying to dodge officers and drive away.

That’s when Mims pointed his gun and fired at least five times as the van passed him.

Two bullets hit the rear passenger door and frame of the van. Three shots missed. No video of this came out in Dixon’s criminal case.

Peter Dixon's van with bullet holes from Ahmad Mims.

A bullet hole at the bottom of Peter Dixon's van.

A bullet hole in the door of Peter Dixon's van.

None of the other officers in Mims’ car got out. None of the other officers in either police car fired their guns, records show.

Dixon took police on a seven-mile chase that officers estimated at topping 100 mph through the West Side and suburbs, ending with an arrest on the Onondaga Nation.

There, police subdued Dixon and found he was unarmed with two small bags of pot, according to court records.

None of the three children were hurt, though they were clearly upset and crying, Dixon and police noted.

What did Mims know before he fired?

Mims denies he knew the children were in the backseat when he opened fire.

Breen wrote in his police report that he noticed “a few small children” during the initial stop. Breen said he spoke to Mims about Dixon’s behavior, but never mentioned the children.

Patrick Moore, another officer, said he saw at least two children in car seats behind Dixon and tried to warn the others. But, he said, Mims didn’t hear him.

Wexler, the police expert, said other officers should have communicated the children were there, even if Mims couldn’t see himself.

Mims, Breen and Moore shared the same vehicle while pursuing Dixon. Breen said he never told Mims about the children, either before or during the chase. It’s unclear if Moore mentioned the kids during the chase, though Breen testified that he didn’t think Mims knew at any point.

‘Mims was absolutely justified’

District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said his office reviewed the case – as in all officer-involved shootings -- and decided not to prosecute Mims. But his office also decided to drop charges against Dixon after Mims’ own arrest made him an unusable witness.

The DA’s office declined comment on the police chase.

Dixon is in state prison on a subsequent drug conviction. He previously spent time in prison for a weapons charge.

Piedmonte, the union president, noted that Dixon refused orders and acted in ways that made officers fearful. He stressed that Mims was not disciplined for shooting at the van.

Mayor Ben Walsh’s office would not answer questions about his management of the police department or the incident, including:

What did the police investigation show? Was Mims given any direction after the episode? What are the police policies for shooting at fleeing cars?

A police spokesman also declined an interview.

Mims declined comment. His lawyer, Eric Jeschke, said his client’s actions were justified. He pointed to fellow officers, who testified that Dixon’s van appeared aimed at Mims twice.

“(Dixon) tried to run over Mr. Mims twice and the officer was absolutely in fear of being harmed or hurt or worse due to his driving,” Jeschke said.

Mims talked about that day in a 2017 story for The Stand, a publication organized by a coalition of journalists that includes Syracuse University.

Photos taken by Syracuse police of officer Ahmad Mims after he fired at least five times at a van in April 2017.

In it, he told The Stand’s director, Ashley Kang, that he didn’t know there were children in the car until he read it in a Syracuse.com article the next week.

“I sit and think, for him … to drive recklessly and hit officers with kids in the car, can you imagine what he would have done if he was by himself?” Mims told The Stand.

Mims told the publication he was on paid leave for six weeks after firing at the van.

“We had to do everything we could to stop the individual from causing any more harm to myself, my partners or other innocent people on the street,” Mims said.

Changed policy

But Fitzpatrick and Piedmonte said police have changed their policy regarding shooting at moving vehicles after several officer-involved shootings, including the Dixon case.

The new policy, instituted about a year ago, forbids officers from intentionally getting in the path of moving vehicles, or shooting at them without some extraordinary circumstance, such a terrorist attack or a driver firing at officers, Piedmonte said.

Syracuse police policy is now in line with recommendations by the federal government and the Police Executive Research Forum, the police think tank. And it would have prohibited Mims from firing his weapon that day.

It’s the same policy the New York City police department has had since 1972.

The reason? Shooting at a fleeing driver isn’t like in the movies, said PERF’s Wexler. It’s unlikely to disable the vehicle. Even if an officer hits the vehicle or driver, it’s most likely going to cause the vehicle to careen out of control.

Wexler, a former Boston police executive, said Mims shouldn’t have fired at the vehicle unless he reasonably believed the driver was about to commit a major crime.

Dixon blamed Mims for overreacting during the traffic stop, pulling his gun and then punching out the plastic window.

“My reaction was to get out of there, because I knew they were doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing,” Dixon said. “And I backed up away from them. I didn’t really have any idea what I was doing, but I was trying to get away from that scene because my children were crying and I was scared for our lives.”

After watching the video, Wexler said it was clear the driver was scared after Mims pulled the gun and smashed the plastic.

Police behavior should be proportional to the crime, he said. Was a high-speed chase warranted here? All police had on Dixon was a parking violation and perceived suspicious behavior.

Wexler asked: “Is it possible to get this person later?”