Phillip Brown

NION-006 · Shot at during a traffic stop for window tint and a missing plate. Two police reports left the shooting out. · Washington, DC · 2025-10-17

Case ID: NION-006
Age: 33
Legal status: Unknown
Agency: ICE
Location: Washington, DC
Incident date: 2025-10-17
Abuse type: Excessive Force; Attempted Coverup; False Statements by Officials
Verification tier: T1 Third-party evidence of the incident, or court order

Summary

A Homeland Security Investigations agent fired into Phillip Brown’s vehicle during a joint MPD and federal traffic stop in Northeast Washington on October 17, 2025. Brown was not hit. Neither police report filed that night mentioned the shooting, and the officer who wrote one of them testified four days later that a team leader had instructed him to omit it and that no officers had been standing at Brown’s car. A judge dismissed the charge for lack of probable cause. It took two acts of the D.C. Council, one of them passed over a mayoral veto, before the body camera footage became public.

What happened

INCIDENT DETAILS

On the evening of Friday, October 17, 2025, Metropolitan Police Department officers Jason Sterling and Divonnie Powell were patrolling the 3900 block of Benning Road NE alongside 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. They tried to stop a Dodge SUV driven by Phillip Brown because they suspected the window tint was too dark and the vehicle had no front license plate.

Sterling's sworn affidavit records that the SUV was traveling at a normal speed but changed lanes several times as he activated his emergency equipment. The MPD officers moved aside to let the federal agents make the stop, because District law bars MPD from most vehicle pursuits. When the SUV stopped behind a Toyota RAV4, Powell and an agent identified in the affidavit only as Bebber got out and shouted orders.

Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Benedict Bebber fired into the vehicle. Brown was the driver and sole occupant. He was not struck, and he was not armed. His attorneys say at least three rounds were fired, that two entered the front passenger seat at chest level, and that one passed through the collar of the jacket he was wearing.

The body camera recording MPD later released runs one minute and twenty seconds, from 20:44:46 to 20:46:06. Brown can be heard on it saying "Yo, what did I just do? Yo, y'all just shot at me."

What the car did is disputed. Sterling's affidavit states that the engine "revved and start [sic] 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. Sterling testified four days later that none of the law enforcement officers had been standing at Brown's car.

Neither report filed that night mentioned the shooting. Sterling's affidavit, filed in D.C. Superior Court, left it out. Powell's public incident report left it out, and an officer marked "no" in that report's shots-fired section. A separate report about an HSI agent discharging a weapon was filed the following day for the internal affairs investigation.

CHARGES AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

On June 25, 2025, in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Brown pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fleeing and to possession of an open container of alcohol. Judge Judith Bartnoff suspended the sentences on both counts in full, so he served no jail time, and placed him on six months of unsupervised probation. That probation was still running in October.

On October 17, 2025, after the stop, he was arrested and charged with fleeing from a law enforcement officer, a felony, and with leaving after colliding. He was issued a notice of infraction for driving with a suspended vehicle registration.

On the night of October 20, according to his defense attorney Quo Mieko Judkins, the prosecutor offered a plea to a reduced misdemeanor, expiring the moment the preliminary hearing began. Judkins says that when the offer was made the prosecutor had not seen body camera footage and did not know a shot had been fired.

On October 21, 2025, four days after the arrest, Sterling testified at the preliminary hearing that a team leader had instructed him not to put the shooting in his report, because there would be an internal affairs investigation. He testified that none of the officers had been standing at Brown's car, and that officers believed Brown meant to flee because the engine revved.

Judge Carmen McLean dismissed the charge that same day for lack of probable cause. The dismissal was without prejudice, which means the U.S. Attorney's Office may bring the charge again.

AGENCY STATEMENTS

Department of Homeland Security, October 27, 2025

"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."

Department of Homeland Security, October 28, 2025

"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."

Metropolitan Police Department, October 2025

Spokesperson Tom Lynch said the department's Internal Affairs Bureau was investigating, that "MPD investigates all shootings involving members of law enforcement that occur in the District of Columbia," and that "The case will be independently reviewed by the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia." Lynch declined to comment on Sterling's testimony about the omission.

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, January 16, 2026

Timothy Lauer, a spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, said the agents 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.

Withdrawals and corrections

No agency has retracted the statement that Brown drove his vehicle at officers in a deliberate attempt to run them down. The officer who wrote the arrest affidavit testified four days after writing it that none of the officers had been standing at the car.

BEST OFFICER JUSTIFICATION

Agents on a joint patrol saw a vehicle change lanes repeatedly at the moment an officer activated emergency equipment, which is consistent with a driver preparing to run. The driver was in fact on probation for fleeing, which gave him a reason to avoid the stop that the agents could not have known at the time and that the court record has since confirmed. When the vehicle stopped, its engine revved. An agent standing near a car that revs after a driver has declined to yield has a second or two to decide what is happening, and the legal standard asks whether his belief was reasonable in that moment rather than whether it turned out to be correct. No one was hit.

THE OUTCOME

Brown spent the weekend in custody and was released on October 21, 2025. Accounts differ on whether that was three days or four. Judkins says he has had trouble sleeping and replays the encounter, and that he believed the agents were trying to kill him.

The footage stayed out of public view for five and a half months. 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.

The D.C. Council changed that twice, and both measures passed on March 3, 2026. The Body-Worn Camera Transparency for Use of Force Emergency Amendment Act of 2026 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, 2026, and it applies retroactively to August 1, 2025. The second measure, the Full Accountability in Arrest Reporting Amendment Act of 2026, requires MPD to document federal agents' involvement in arrests and any use of force during them. Bowser vetoed it, arguing that federal law enforcement is best addressed at the federal level. The Council overrode her on March 31, 2026, and it became law without her signature.

MPD posted the footage on April 6, 2026, in the first release made under the new law. A letter from Deputy Mayor Lindsey Appiah to Councilmember Brooke Pinto named Bebber as the agent who fired.

The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Bebber. Brown's attorneys said on April 7, 2026 that they were preparing to sue and called for an independent investigation. No lawsuit appears in any public record as of August 4, 2026. The charge against Brown remains dismissed without prejudice.