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NYC correction officer on trial for killing teen was scared, attorney says
By
Samantha Max
Published Oct 16, 2024
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NYC Department of Correction
By
Samantha Max
Published Oct 16, 2024
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An off-duty New York City correction officer on trial for shooting and killing a teenager who struck him with a gel bead fired from a fake gun had feared for his life and acted in self-defense, his attorney told jurors deciding his fate. But prosecutors said the officer “overreacted” and fired the fatal shot because he felt disrespected.
Dion Middleton, 48, has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Raymond Chaluisant, 18. The competing narratives of what transpired between the two shortly after 1 a.m. on July 21, 2022, came during closing statements in Middleton’s trial this week. He faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted on the most serious charge.
Dion Middleton, second from right, speaks with people outside the courtroom at the Bronx Hall of Justice Wednesday.
Samantha Max/Gothamist
Prosecutors say Middleton shot Chaluisant in the face, then drove off in his car, slept at his girlfriend’s place for several hours and went to work the next morning, at which time he was arrested. The bullet fired by Middleton pierced Chaluisant’s cheek and lodged in his neck. The teen was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx.
“You can be angry at somebody,” Justin Siebel, senior investigative counsel with the New York attorney general’s office, said in a closing statement on Wednesday. “But you can’t shoot somebody because you’re angry at them.”
Middleton, a firearms instructor for the city's Department of Correction, was suspended without pay after the shooting, according to a spokesperson for the jail system. A judge set bail at $1 million.
Middleton’s attorney, Joey Jackson, told jurors on Tuesday that the officer was walking to his car outside his home near Morris Avenue and the Cross Bronx Expressway when he felt something hit his back. He said Middleton thought he had gotten caught in a drive-by shooting and pulled out his own concealed firearm to protect himself.
Middleton fired one shot, hitting Chaluisant as he sat in a nearby car.
“This is a tragedy,” Jackson said. “It’s not a crime.”
In the courtroom, Middleton sat with his shoulders hunched and his chin down during most of his attorney’s hourslong closing statement on Tuesday, occasionally tapping his fingers on the table. Loved ones crowded into two rows of benches behind him. A handful of Chaluisant’s relatives sat across the aisle.
Jackson said Chaluisant and a friend had been riding around in a stolen car and firing beads from an air rifle when they saw Middleton walking and decided to target him. It was not a real gun, but Jackson said it posed a real danger. He showed jurors a warning printed on a user manual, which said the gun is “not a toy” and can cause serious injuries.
Jurors watched body-worn camera footage from a police officer who responded to the scene. It showed the officer opening the door and a large, neon orange object falling out of the passenger seat and onto the street. Chaluisant had been playing with a bead blaster, which looks like a brightly colored military-style rifle and shoots gel beads instead of bullets.
While the devices are illegal in New York City, bead blasters were trending on TikTok that summer, prompting police to repeatedly warn the public not to use them.
“They were having a problem with that air rifle that summer,” the attorney said, referring to police. “Why? Because they’re dangerous.”
Jackson said Middleton thought he had been hit by a bullet fragment and that an actual bullet might hit him soon if he did not act quickly. He also said the officer lived in a neighborhood where shootings are common and worried that people he had supervised in city jails might be trying to hurt him.
A prank gone wrong
Prosecutors painted a much different picture. Siebel from the attorney general’s office said Chaluisant and his friend were not in a stolen car. He said the “stinging” Middleton later told police he felt on his back was from the bead blaster and that Middleton knew he had not been shot with a real bullet.
Siebel said the bead blaster was a “distraction” and held it up in a plastic bag to show the jury. The real weapon, he said, was Middleton’s firearm.
“The gun could kill somebody. It did kill somebody. It killed Raymond Chaluisant,” he said. “This is a toy.”
Siebel described the shooting as a prank gone wrong. He said Middleton got angry when he felt something hit his back and played surveillance footage that showed him turning around and moving toward the car. The prosecutor said Middleton was not afraid but that he fired at Chaluisant because he felt like he was being mocked.
Siebel also emphasized Middleton’s shooting skills. He showed jurors copies of the officer’s firearm qualification exams for the Department of Correction, which he repeatedly aced with various types of guns.
The prosecutor showed photos of the items police found in Middleton’s car after the shooting, including boxes of ammunition, a shirt with a gun on it and copies of a magazine about riflery. He called Middleton a “trained marksman.”
“When he aimed at Raymond’s head and fired, he knew what he was hitting,” Siebel said.
But Middleton did not flag down a police car or call 911 after the shooting, he added. “He had no intention of ever coming forward,” said Siebel.
A representative for the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association declined to comment outside the courtroom. Relatives of Middleton and Chaluisant also declined to speak.
The attorney general’s office is prosecuting the case under a state law that requires a special unit to investigate all killings by police and correction officers, including off-duty incidents. Since the law took effect in 2021, the office says it has pursued charges against eight officers statewide, including five in New York City.
Middleton is the first correction officer charged under the law.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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