Dorothy Dixon, 53, was killed on February 4, 2019, while looking for construction work on West 33rd Street in Coney Island. An argument between two men nearby escalated when one man, identified in reports as Malik Fryar, retrieved a firearm from his vehicle and fired multiple shots into the crowd of laborers. Dixon, a mother of six and a grandmother, was struck in the torso and later died at the hospital; another worker was wounded in the leg and survived.

Fryar fled the scene on foot to a nearby residence while his wife drove the car away. The NYPD opened a homicide investigation and located Fryar on July 17, 2019, in an apartment on the Lower East Side; officers found him attempting to escape through an air conditioner duct and arrested him. Dixon’s family described her as a hardworking woman trying to provide for her loved ones.