National Guardsman Allegedly Pulled Gun on Fellow Guard Member After Threatening to ‘Slap the Jackson 5’ Out of Her

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

A National Guardsman stationed in Washington, D.C., was arrested after allegedly pointing a gun at a fellow Guard member during a dispute over whether their hairstyles complied with Army regulations.

The Aug. 25 incident unfolded while several guardsmen were taking a break from patrol inside a black van, according to court documents cited by ABC News on Tuesday.

Zion Mitchell and another Guard member began arguing over their hair when Mitchell allegedly told her, “I would slap the Jackson 5 out of you,” according to the affidavit.

The pair continued trading words until the woman told Mitchell to “shut the f**k up.” She then heard what she described as a “holster click,” followed by another guardsman in the van saying, “Put that up. You almost shot me in the hand.”

The woman did not see Mitchell draw the firearm and only learned afterward that he had allegedly done so, according to the court documents. Another witness, however, told investigators that she looked up during the confrontation and saw Mitchell pointing his firearm toward the woman over another guardsman’s shoulder.

Mitchell gave detectives a different account of the encounter, telling them that “he pulled a pistol magazine out of his vest pocket and pointed it at her as part of the playful banter,” according to the documents.

Court records show Mitchell was ordered held “due to the nature of the crimes.”

He did not enter a plea during his preliminary hearing. His next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 15.

Last August, President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington and deployed a federal law enforcement “task force” to work alongside local police, while also sending out-of-state National Guard members into the city.

He’s since touted the alleged success of the crackdown, repeatedly boasting in an August speech that “young beautiful girls” have been showing up at the White House to thank him for lowering crime.

Yet as The Washington Post reported, also last month, an analysis of more than 16,000 arrest records found that Trump’s claims about his impact on D.C. crime actually “oversimplify and overstate the impact of the federal intervention.”

Not to mention, the falling crime numbers Trump has bragged about also follow a years-long decline — and come from the same FBI data he’s previously attacked.

As MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian noted in a conversation with the network’s Katy Tur, Trump “claimed they were fraudulent” when similar figures were released under former President Joe Biden, but “the minute he took office, Katy, he began embracing these FBI numbers that he once criticized.”

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