A former Millville police officer has admitted to using excessive force against women in two separate arrests.
One of the women suffered seven broken ribs.
Joseph Dixon, 28, to pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of third-degree aggravated assault in Cumberland County, Attorney Gurbir Grewal said.
In exchange for his plea, Dixon faces 364 days in county jail and probation when he is sentenced Jan. 17
Dixon, who recently resigned from the Millville Police Department, is permanently barred from any public employment in the state.
The incidents that led to the charges against Dixon occurred in early 2018.
Dixon broke the ribs of a woman he was arrested for drunken driving Feb. 25, 2018.
When the woman repeatedly asked to call her husband and twice turned to face Dixon as he tried to handcuff her, Dixon grabbed her around the neck, flipped her over his extended leg and threw her to the ground, according to the charges. He then dropped on top of her to handcuff her.
He ignored her repeated pleas that he had broken her ribs, that she could not breathe and that she needed to go to the hospital.
Dixon told her that if she could talk, she could breathe, and he drove her to the police station for breath testing and processing, according to the report.
He made no mention of the woman’s claims in his investigative report, and he indicated in his use-of-force report that no injuries occurred.
One of the woman’s seven broken ribs had to be removed.
Dixon then responded to a shoplifting call involving a juvenile male at a local supermarket on March 24, 2018.
During the call, the shoplifter’s mother became argumentative because she could not produce the identification requested for officers to release her child to her custody, the report said.
Dixon told her that she was under arrest.
When the woman backed away from Dixon, he grabbed her upper body with both arms, flipped her over and slammed her down on the floor.
He then dropped on top of her and used pepper spray on her while handcuffing her, despite the immediate presence of dozens of people of varying ages, many of whom reacted to the spray, the charges state.
Dixon took the woman to the police station for processing, but relatives called for an ambulance and she was taken to the hospital as soon as she arrived at the police station. She suffered a bruised hip and burning eyes from the pepper spray.
“These guilty pleas reflect our resolve to ensure that law enforcement officers are held accountable if they use violent force against civilians without justification,” Grewal said. “When officers use force that has no reasonable relationship to any resistance or threat they face, as Dixon did, they not only injure and traumatize those involved, they do a tremendous disservice to all of their fellow officers who uphold the highest law enforcement standards and work hard to secure the trust of the communities they serve.”
The Office of Public Integrity and Accountability was created in September 2018.
One of its mission “is to investigate alleged crimes and civil rights violations by law enforcement officers,” OPIA Director Thomas Eicher said. “Nobody is above the law, and if we have sufficient proof that an officer has committed a crime, we will prosecute that officer as we would any other individual. This former officer will rightly carry a felony record for the rest of his life.”
OPIA has a toll-free Tipline 1-844-OPIA-TIPS for the public to report official misconduct and crimes involving government employees.
The AG’s Office has an Anti-Corruption Reward Program that offers a reward of as much as $25,000 for tips leading to a conviction for a crime involving public corruption. Information is posted HERE.
