He Was Stopped for Window Tint. A Federal Agent Shot At Him 3 Times. An Officer Was Told to Leave It Out of the Report.

Homeland Security said Phillip Brown drove his vehicle at officers in a deliberate attempt to run them down. Four days later, the police officer who wrote the arrest affidavit testified under oath that none of the officers had been standing at Brown's car. Neither police report filed that night mentioned that anyone had fired a gun.

Phillip Brown was pulled over in Northeast Washington for a window tint and a missing front plate. A Homeland Security Investigations agent fired into his car. Neither police report filed that night mentioned the shooting, and the officer who wrote one of them testified that he was told to leave it out.

Phillip Brown was driving on Benning Road in Northeast Washington on a Friday evening in October.

He was 33. He had a Dodge SUV with tinted windows and no front license plate, and a vehicle registration that had lapsed.

At 8:44 that evening, two Metropolitan Police Department officers pulled in behind him.

They were not alone. Officers Jason Sterling and Divonnie Powell were riding that night with federal agents from Customs and Border Protection, the Diplomatic Security Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, under an initiative called Make DC Safe Again.

Sterling's sworn affidavit, filed days later in D.C. Superior Court, records that the SUV was traveling at a normal speed. It changed lanes several times as he switched on his emergency lights. Suspecting the driver meant to run, the two MPD officers pulled back and let the federal agents make the stop, because District law bars local police from most vehicle pursuits.

The SUV stopped behind a Toyota RAV4. Powell got out. So did a Homeland Security Investigations special agent whom the affidavit names only as Bebber.

Then the engine revved.

What happened next

Special Agent Benedict Bebber fired into the car.

Brown was the driver and the sole occupant. He was not hit. He was not armed. His attorneys say at least three rounds were fired, that two went into the front passenger seat at chest level, and that one passed through the collar of the jacket he was wearing.

What the car itself did in those seconds is contested and remains so. Sterling's affidavit states that the engine revved and the SUV began "advancing towards officers that were on foot and ultimately struck the rear of the Rav4." Brown's lawyers say there is no evidence of a crash. One of the charges brought against Brown that night was leaving after colliding.

The part of the affidavit's account that did not survive is the part about the officers. Four days later its author said under oath that nobody was standing there.

Brown was pulled out, handcuffed, and arrested.

The body camera recording that the public would eventually see runs eighty seconds, from 20:44:46 to 20:46:06. On it, Brown can be heard on the ground.

*"Yo, what did I just do? Yo, y'all just shot at me."*

Brown was charged with fleeing from a law enforcement officer, a felony, and with leaving after colliding. He was issued a notice of infraction for the suspended registration. He spent the weekend in a cell.

What the government said

Ten days later, after a local paper began asking questions, the Department of Homeland Security sent a statement.

*"On October 17, during a traffic stop an individual attempted to evade authorities. During the attempted stop, the suspect drove his vehicle at a Metro Police officer and a special agent from Homeland Security Investigations, in a deliberate attempt to run them down. The agent in fear for his life, and the lives of others, and the public fired defensive shots into the suspect's vehicle. No one was injured and Metro Police took the suspect into custody. This incident is currently under investigation."*

The following day the department told the Associated Press that the case was part of a pattern.

*"This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of vehicles being used as weapons against DHS law enforcement. Our officers are facing a 1000% increase in assaults against them including vehicle rammings, terrorist attacks, and even bounties for their murders. The violence must end."*

Two reports, and what was not in them

Officer Sterling wrote the affidavit that went to the court. It describes the lane changes, the revving engine, the arrest, and the transport to the Sixth District station for processing.

It does not mention that a federal agent fired a weapon.

Officer Powell filed the public incident report. It does not mention the shooting either. In the section of that report asking whether shots were fired, an officer marked no.

A separate report about an HSI agent discharging a weapon was filed the next day, routed to internal affairs, where the public would not see it.

The prosecutor assigned to decide whether to charge Brown was not told either. The night before Brown's preliminary hearing, that prosecutor offered him a deal: plead to a reduced misdemeanor, and the offer expires when the hearing starts. Brown's defense attorney, Quo Mieko Judkins, says that when the offer was made the prosecutor had not seen any body camera footage and did not know a shot had been fired at her client.

Brown did not take it.

October 21

Four days after the arrest, Sterling took the stand at Brown's preliminary hearing.

He testified that a team leader had instructed him not to put the shooting in his report, because there would be an internal affairs investigation into it.

He also testified about where the officers had been standing. According to the Washington Post, Sterling told the judge that none of the law enforcement officers had been standing at Brown's car, and that the officers had believed Brown meant to flee because the engine revved.

Judge Carmen McLean dismissed the charge that same day for lack of probable cause.

Homeland Security has never retracted its statement that Brown drove his vehicle at a Metro Police officer and a federal agent in a deliberate attempt to run them down.

What Brown had done

Brown was not necessarily an angel.

On June 25, 2025, four months before the stop, Brown had pleaded guilty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to misdemeanor fleeing and to possession of an open container of alcohol. Judge Judith Bartnoff suspended both sentences in full, so he served no time, and put him on six months of unsupervised probation. That probation was still running on the night he was pulled over.

A man on probation for fleeing has a reason to avoid a traffic stop that the agents standing at his window could not have known and that the court record has since confirmed. It is the strongest thing that can be said for the decision to treat him as a runner.

It is not a reason to fire into his car, and it is not why the shooting was left out of two police reports.

No charges, in either direction

In January, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the agents who fired into cars in the District could not be prosecuted because no one was struck by the shots. MPD referred its findings to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Professional Responsibility. What became of that referral is not public.

Bebber was not the only one. Four weeks after Brown, on November 13, another Homeland Security Investigations agent fired at another driver on the same road. That driver, Justin Nelson, faces charges. He declined to have his own body camera footage released.

It took two laws

The footage of the Brown shooting stayed out of public view for five and a half months, but it still shook the District.

MPD was already required to publish the names and body camera video of its own officers after a serious use of force. No such requirement reached a federal agent standing next to them on the same sidewalk.

The D.C. Council closed that gap on March 3, 2026, and it took two separate measures on the same day.

The first was the Body-Worn Camera Transparency for Use of Force Emergency Amendment Act of 2026, which requires MPD to release footage when a law enforcement officer other than an MPD officer commits a serious use of force with MPD present. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed it on March 23. It applies retroactively to August 1, 2025.

The second was the Full Accountability in Arrest Reporting Act, which requires MPD to document federal agents' involvement in arrests and any use of force during them. It is, in substance, a law against writing the report Sterling wrote.

Bowser vetoed it, arguing that federal law enforcement is best addressed at the federal level. The Council overrode her on March 31 and it became law without her signature.

*"When federal officers use force in the District, victims and their families should not have to guess who was there, who used force, or what happened," said At-Large Councilmember Robert White, who wrote it. "Transparency should not be optional when someone's life is on the line."*

On April 6, MPD posted the videos. It was the first release made under the new law. A letter from Deputy Mayor Lindsey Appiah to the Council named the agent who fired.

Where it stands

Brown's attorneys said in April that they were preparing to sue and called for an independent investigation. As of August 4, 2026, they have not.

Bebber has not been charged. The referral to Homeland Security's internal watchdog has produced nothing public. The charge against Brown can still be refiled.

And the Department of Homeland Security's account of that evening, the one about a man driving at officers in a deliberate attempt to run them down, is still the government's official version of what happened on Benning Road.

It has never been withdrawn. It has only been contradicted, under oath, by the officer who was standing there.