A National Guard member who had been assigned to patrol Washington is being held in the D.C. jail on a felony charge after allegedly unholstering his loaded firearm and pointing it at another Guard member during an argument in a van.
Several National Guard members said they were taking a break from patrol in or near the van, which was parked outside a Popeye’s restaurant on H Street Northeast on Aug. 25, according to an arrest report.
They told D.C. police, the report said, that Zion Mitchell, 21, was arguing with a woman in the front passenger seat, who was not identified by name, “over their hairstyles and whether they were following Army regulations.”
During the argument, Mitchell, of Macon, Georgia, allegedly “stated something to the effect of, ‘I would slap the Jackson 5 out of you,’” the report said.
“The victim and the suspect went back and forth several more times, at which time Victim 1 told Suspect Mitchell to ‘shut the f— up,’” police wrote in the report.
It was at that point, according to the report, that Mitchell, sitting in the third row of the van, unholstered his weapon and aimed it toward the woman, over the shoulder of another Guard member.
Mitchell was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. He is being held without bond while awaiting a status hearing set for next Tuesday.
His attorney did not immediately respond to a request Tuesday for comment on the allegations.
According to the police report, Mitchell initially told police he was holding a magazine with ammunition during a playful argument.
Mitchell later “recanted” that version of events, according to the report, stating that he pulled the gun and pointed it in the direction of the victim, but that it was not aimed toward her head.
In interviews with police, other Guard members in the van said that Mitchell “picks on people and is aggressive,” and that he did not get along with the victim because she previously “rejected his advances,” according to the police report.
A spokesperson for the National Guard’s Joint Task Force-District of Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case Tuesday.
Mitchell’s arrest comes as the presence patrols by the National Guard in Washington are under heightened scrutiny after more than a year of deployment. President Donald Trump deployed troops to the city in August 2025, weeks after the attempted carjacking and assault of a former staffer in Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service.
The American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia, along with the national group and other affiliates, last week called for an end to the deployment, saying there was no public safety emergency justifying the continued presence.
The deployment of troops in Washington, which is expected to last through the end of Trump’s second term, is set to cost an additional $1.4 billion from October through January 2029, according to information provided to Congress and reviewed by The Washington Post.
The National Guard will maintain a presence in D.C. until January 2029 or “until the president says the mission is over,” Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard II, the interim commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, told reporters in a news briefing last month.
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