D.C. police have released two body camera videos from a night in October when a Homeland Security agent fired at a vehicle they were attempting to stop.
On Oct. 17, 2025, just before 10 p.m., Phillip Brown, 33, was driving a white Dodge SUV with dark-tinted windows in the 4300 block of Benning Road in Northeast when he was spotted by officers in a marked cruiser.
D.C. police followed the SUV, and charging documents said Brown switched lanes several times during the attempted stop.
When the SUV approached stopped traffic, one D.C. police officer told federal officers that Brown was going to flee, and the cruiser that had been following the SUV moved out of the way to let the federal agents stop the vehicle.
When the SUV came to a near stop behind another vehicle, a D.C. police officer and a Homeland Security Investigations officer got out of the cruiser and ordered Brown to stop.
Charging documents said Brown revved the engine and started “advancing toward officers that were on foot.” Brown ultimately struck the rear of the other vehicle, police said in their report.
The two videos do not show Homeland Security agent Benedict Bebber firing at the car driven by Brown, of Hyattsville, Maryland, but they capture the moment it happened.
There’s audio of shots being fired, then officers order Brown to get out of his car and lay on the ground. He can be seen lying on the pavement before officers drag him a few feet away from the vehicle and handcuff him.
Brown is heard asking, “What did I do? Your guy just shot at me.”
Two bullet holes were later found in the driver’s side window and one in the driver’s seat of the vehicle. Police said Brown was not struck by any of the bullets.
The footage from the Oct. 17 traffic stop at Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road NE is the first released under a two-week-old D.C. law requiring local police to release bodycam videos when a federal agent opens fire. The D.C. police department previously was required to do so only in use-of-force cases involving its own officers.
According to police, Brown was accused of trying to flee from law enforcement. However, his lawyers said a judge later ruled there was “insufficient evidence” to support that and dismissed the case.
D.C. police said their internal affairs team reviewed the incident and sent its findings to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which declined to prosecute.
Since the incident involving Brown, federal agents have shot at people at least two other times in D.C.
In November, DHS said Homeland Security agent Adrienne Gardner “defensively discharged her weapon” at a driver accused of attempting to run over federal agents in the 3400 block of Benning Road NE. D.C. Deputy Mayor Lindsey Appiah said in an April 6 letter to Council member Brooke Pinto that the suspect in that case declined to allow the public release of the body camera video.
In February, U.S. Marshals shot and killed Julian Marquette Bailey in Northeast D.C’s Mayfair neighborhood. WTOP has asked police whether D.C. officers were present at that shooting.
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