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A Brooklyn man charged with manslaughter in the beating death of a transgender woman in Harlem told prosecutors and detectives he had been flirting with her just moments before the attack, unaware that she was transgender.
In a taped confession played in court on Friday, the man, James Dixon, said he became enraged when he heard a friend making fun of him and then realized he was talking to a transgender woman. “I just remember lashing out,” he said.
Mr. Dixon, 25, said that he pushed himself away from the woman, Islan Nettles, and started to walk away, but that Ms. Nettles shoved him from behind, forcing him to trip. He got to his feet quickly, he said, whirled and hit her with his right hand, knocking her to the sidewalk, then punched her a second time as she lay on the ground, apparently unconscious. Then, he said, he turned on her companion, another transgender woman, and said, “You want some too?”
The account of the crime that Mr. Dixon gave to prosecutors was played in State Supreme Court in Manhattan during a pretrial hearing to determine whether the confession could be used as evidence at his trial, which is scheduled for next week. Justice Daniel P. Conviser ruled that the statements, as well as two others Mr. Dixon made to the police earlier, were admissible.
For much of the hour long interview shown on the videotape, Mr. Dixon gave vague and sometimes contradictory answers about how the fight with Ms. Nettles had started and who was present, while two detectives and two prosecutors, clearly skeptical, pressed him for details.
Ms. Nettles, a 21-year-old assistant at a fashion company, was attacked just after midnight on Aug. 17, 2013, outside a police station at 147th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. She was walking with two transgender friends when she encountered Mr. Dixon and a group of at least six other young men, who were walking south on the boulevard, according to prosecutors.
Ms. Nettles died of head injuries she sustained when her head rammed into the pavement as Mr. Dixon hit her, prosecutors say. Battered beyond recognition, she was taken off life support after a week in a coma.
Islan Nettles
The killing of Ms. Nettles incensed transgender people in New York, prompting vigils and protests. For many, her death was emblematic of violence against transgender people, who are frequently the targets of beatings.
Three days after the assault, Mr. Dixon, of Class on Avenue in Brooklyn, turned himself in to the police and confessed, telling a detective he had flown into “a blind fury” when he discovered he was talking to a transgender woman. The next morning, he was videotaped repeating the story for prosecutors.
His confession notwithstanding, Mr. Dixon was not indicted until March 2015, because some witnesses had identified Paris Wilson, a casual friend of Mr. Dixon’s, as the attacker, muddying the investigation. In the end, charges were dropped against Mr. Wilson.
In his confession, Mr. Dixon said he and two friends had been drinking and were walking uptown on Frederick Douglass, headed to a party not far away. Near 148th Street, he said, he met Mr. Wilson and some other young men who were headed south and told him the party had been canceled.
Though he initially gave a different account of his encounter with Ms. Nettles, Mr. Dixon admitted while being questioned by a homicide detective that he had seen some of his friends talking to her and a second transgender woman, who was more heavy set and wore a white top and sandals. He crossed the street and began chatting with Ms. Nettles, whom he did not realize was transgender. “I remember asking her what is her name, where are you from,” he said. “That’s how I roll up.”
Then, he said, he heard one of his friends mocking him, saying, “That’s a guy,” and he became enraged. “They were clowning me,” he told the detectives.
It was not the first time he had been ridiculed, Mr. Dixon said in his videotaped statement. A few days earlier, he had been deeply embarrassed when two transgender women approached him while he was doing pull-ups on a scaffolding at 138th Street and Eighth Avenue. Not realizing they were transgender, he flirted with them, he said, and was teased badly by his friends.
Mr. Dixon, who is not charged with a hate crime, denied during his confession he had used slurs when he hit Ms. Nettles, as has been reported. He also declared he bore no hatred for transgender people as a group.
“I don’t care what they do,” he said. “I just didn’t want to be fooled.”
One of Channel 17uinn's goals, is to remove the stigma transphobia through positive and educational media. For far too long, Hollywood,
shows like Jerry Springer and sites like YouTube. Promote transphobic content, that feeds the stereotypical machine, that transgender or transsexual women are men and that being attracted to us makes them gay.
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being a gay male.
But being a gay male and transgender or transsexual woman are
two completely different subjects and focus of gender identity.
When these so called "Alpha Males," get their lifetime ideal of
what being a man is, and whom he should attracted too
challenged. So they brutally lashing out as us, with a lifetime
of : "Say it isn't so!" madness. Screaming in their heads. That they
believe can only be stopped, by removing the perceived threat.
Our lives and very existence.
Just two weeks after he pleaded guilty to killing Black trans woman Islan Nettles, a New York City judge officially sentenced James Dixon to 12 years in prison.
On April 5, 2016, Dixon accepted a deal to serve 12 years for admitting his guilt on charges of second-degree manslaughter
and first-degree assault. Yesterday’s sentencing upheld the terms of the proposed deal.
and first-degree assault. Yesterday’s sentencing upheld the terms of the proposed deal.
While out with friends in Harlem on August 17, 2013, Dixon, 25, hit on Nettles. After realizing she was a transgender woman, he asked if “she was a man” and punched her twice, knocking her down. Nettles, a 21-year-old who worked in fashion, died five days later from head injuries sustained from falling to the concrete.
The New York Times reports that Nettles’ mother, Delores Nettles, told the court the sentence wasn’t long enough: “He can go home after those 12 years and see his family. It’s not fair.”
New York Supreme Court Justice Daniel P. Conviser revised the district attorney’s original deal, which called for a 17- year incarceration.
“While we have a legal resolution in this one case, for many, it does not represent the real justice we are ultimately seeking. Transgender women, especially women of color, continue to be targeted each day in our city and across the country,” Beverly Tillery, executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, wrote in a commentary for Advocate.com shortly after Davis pleaded guilty. “In honor of Islan Nettles and all the other transgender women who have been attacked and assaulted, and those who continue to live their lives, I hope we can have the hard conversations we need to about how to overcome the transphobia that runs so deep in our society.”
Islan Nettles, 21, was a New York City-based fashion designer.
Photo: Harlem United, via Instagram (@harlemunitednyc)
I so sorry we couldn't save Islan in 2013 and those since,
it's 2019. I want to educate and inform through positive
#LGBTQ media, and prevent future incidents like this, before they happen. She was senselessly killed at 21 & Dixon will
spend years in prison for taking her life.
I have enclosed links below, to support this station and
start a charity for male to female transgender & transsexual
women.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/channel-17-uinn-for-lgbtq-media
https://www.facebook.com/donate/923474188002542/https://fundly.com/translifechange/
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