Months later, we’re still putting the pieces together.

An hour before the Oct. 15 incident that would end with Ali Ahmed Mohammed dead, a fight broke out at DC9. That’s according to Damon Dixon, 37, a bartender there. The fight, which occurred around 1:30 a.m., allegedly involved Georgio Tuccio, 21. Dixon describes the moments before the fight as calm. He was having a conversation with “a guy and a girl” at the bar about piercings when their friend came out of the bathroom and joined the chat. The friend was Tuccio. Dixon recalls that Tuccio immediately started off on the wrong foot by making a bad joke: “He said he had a piercing on his penis and did I want to see it.”

Dixon says he explained that he didn’t appreciate the humor, and Tuccio eventually apologized. But then Dixon tuned around to make a drink, and Tuccio began “screaming at somebody, ‘What you are looking at?'” That’s when the fight broke out. “There was a melee,” Dixon says. “People were fighting. You couldn’t tell who was fighting who.”

Dixon helped get Tuccio out of the club, but not before Tuccio punched out a window, he says. The cops were called, but even after they came Dixon says Tuccio was still going off, “telling everyone to go fuck themselves.” Tucio’s lawyer declined to comment to City Desk.

Tuccio was arrested for destruction of property. In charging documents, cops said Tuccio was talking “loud and aggressive,” when they arrived.

Later that night, five DC9 employees would be arrested for murdering Mohammed after he broke a second window with a brick, following the 27-year-old being denied entrance to the club. Prosecutors have since dropped all charges against the men.  In a filing connected to destruction of property charges against his client, Tuccio’s lawyer, John Copacino,  claimed there were witnesses who saw the DC9 employees once accused of beating Mohammed to death beat up Tuccio. The court papers suggest Tuccio smashed his window in retaliation.

Dixon says that neither beating happened. “Five innocent people have had their lives ruined,” he says.

Tuccio, though, seems to be exiting the story. Earlier this week, authorities dropped the charges against Tuccio. William Miller, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, confirms that his office “has dismissed the misdemeanor charge of destruction of property.”

“Mr. Tuccio has agreed to pay restitution.” Miller says in an e-mail. “Beyond that, we typically do not discuss charging decisions, and have no further comment at this time.”

Photo by meeshypants via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic