A routine stop for gas turned into a nightmare for an 84-year-old Navy veteran in Nashville last month, and police are now asking the public to help track down the man responsible. Dallas Mathis had simply driven a 40-year-old family friend to a Shelby Avenue gas station on the evening of June 24. He wasn’t there for drama. He was there for fuel.
What happened next had nothing to do with Mathis at all. The woman he’d driven walked over to a black four-door sedan parked nearby and started talking with the two people inside. That conversation went sideways fast. An argument broke out, and somehow, an 84-year-old man who was just trying to fill his tank ended up in the middle of it.
Mathis said he tried to defuse the situation. “I put my hands up and said, ‘I don’t mean any harm,'” he told FOX 17 News. That gesture of peace was met with a fist. Then two more. The suspect struck him in the chin, the cheek, and the nose. “When all the blood started flying, he left,” Mathis said. That’s when the attacker decided the situation had gone far enough, apparently.
Metro Nashville police say the assault left Mathis with serious facial injuries, a fact backed up by surveillance footage from the station. He and the woman then drove to Hendersonville Hospital for treatment. Hendersonville police contacted Metro Nashville officers around 11:30 that night once they confirmed the assault had taken place in Davidson County.
Police Are Looking for the Man on Camera
Metro Nashville detectives have released surveillance images of the suspect and are asking anyone who recognizes him to come forward. The public can contact Nashville Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. Callers can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward. The investigation is ongoing and no arrest has been made as of the time of this writing.
The suspect was with at least one other person in that black sedan. It is not entirely clear from the available information what the argument between the woman and the sedan’s occupants was actually about, but whatever it was, an elderly veteran who had nothing to do with it paid the physical price.
This Could Have Happened to Anyone at Any Gas Station
Gas stations are one of those places where the general public is thrown together without warning. You pull in, you fuel up, you leave. Most of the time, nothing happens. But they are also places where random encounters can go wrong quickly, and this case is a reminder that trouble doesn’t always announce itself before it arrives.
Mathis was in his car, minding his own business. There’s no indication he did anything to provoke the attack. He was simply in the wrong place when someone else’s confrontation boiled over.
What Witnesses and the Public Can Do
If you were near the Shelby Avenue gas station in Nashville around 7 p.m. on June 24 and saw anything, or if you recognize the man in the surveillance images, Metro Nashville police want to hear from you. Contact Nashville Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. Tips are confidential, and a reward may be available for information that leads to an arrest.
Dallas Mathis served his country for years as a Navy veteran. At 84, the last thing he deserved was to have his face used as a punching bag over a dispute that wasn’t his. Hopefully someone out there knows who did this.