Norfolk officers accused of retaliation against stepson of Hampton police official, federal lawsuit says

The stepson of an assistant police chief in Hampton is suing the city of Norfolk and several police officers — asserting they retaliated against him in a car crash investigation after he accused an officer of lying about him in a separate case.

Brandon A. Williams, 37, filed the $4.6 million federal lawsuit last month in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, alleging his constitutional rights were violated by a January 2020 trespassing case and a car wreck investigation nine months later.

The lawsuit also contends that because Norfolk officers failed to properly investigate the crash, they never charged the other driver — a U.S. Navy officer — with drunk driving even though his blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit.

“This guy almost killed me,” Williams said in an interview. “It’s only by the grace of God that I’m alive.”

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The trespassing case

Williams’ interactions with Norfolk police began about 11 p.m. on Jan. 8, 2020, when he stopped his white Mercedes sedan at Ocean View Beach Park to talk with his fiancée on the phone. About two minutes later — with his car and lights still on — a Norfolk police SUV pulled up, he said.

Officer John McClanahan told Williams he was trespassing at the city park, the officer’s body camera footage shows. Williams responded by saying he was there only briefly and didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.

The federal lawsuit, filed by Virginia Beach attorney Robert Haddad, does not detail the conversation. But Williams provided to the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot footage from the officer’s body-worn camera as well as a cellphone recording Williams made of the encounter.

McClanahan asked Williams for his identification, but he initially declined to provide it — telling the officer he’d rather wait for the backup he heard McClanahan calling for, the body camera footage shows.

Williams said last week that his driver’s license was in his back left pocket, and he didn’t want the officer to think he was reaching for a gun.

“My ID was in a dark area of my car, and I didn’t just want to go reaching for it,” he said. With a young son at home, he said, he “couldn’t afford a mistake.”

But police officers are authorized to identify people they stop on reasonable suspicion of crimes and traffic violations, and McClanahan pressed for Williams’ license. The driver is blurred out on the camera footage, but Williams said he gave McClanahan his license a few seconds later — well before backup arrived.

“Dude’s just giving me a hard time,” McClanahan said over his police radio as he walked back to his SUV. When the officer stepped away, Williams said he hit record on his cellphone and put it under the seat.

After Williams signed for the trespassing ticket, the recording indicates, McClanahan tells him he needs to provide his thumbprint, too.

“For what? Why do I have to put my thumbprint on there?” Williams said, voicing irritation. “I’ve never had to do that before. I already gave you my signature ... So my dad’s chief of police in Hampton, and I’ve never heard of that.”

Williams was referring to his stepfather, Hampton Assistant Police Chief Kenneth “Kenny” Ferguson.

But another officer tells Williams that Norfolk Police require thumbprints on criminal summonses, and Williams says “whatever” and provides the print. “I’ll take care of it,” he told the officers about the ticket. The encounter ended without incident.

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The court hearing

The federal lawsuit contends that when the trespassing case came up in Norfolk General District Court several weeks later, McClanahan lied about the Ocean View interaction.

A transcript of that testimony isn’t available because General District Court hearings aren’t typically transcribed. But Williams asserts that it wasn’t anywhere close to the truth.

“He got up there and said I was one of the rudest people he’s ever pulled over,” Williams said. “He said that I was using my dad’s position to influence his decision over the ticket ... that I said I didn’t have to listen to him, and that if he gave me the ticket, I was going to have my dad take care of it.”

“Anyone who knows me,” Williams said, knows that doesn’t add up. ”I’ve never gotten any passes for doing anything illegal because my dad is who he is.”

When the judge said he believed McClanahan, Williams said he “begged” the judge “to consider that the officer was lying.” Williams said he told the judge he has no criminal record, is a Morehouse College graduate with a family, and was applying for a job in South Africa.

But the judge found Williams guilty of trespassing and immediately sent him to have his mug shot and fingerprints taken as part of the booking process.

“I was completely humiliated,” he said.

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Williams challenges charge

Ferguson, 58, has been with the Hampton Police Division for 35 years and is its third-highest ranking officer. He was named interim chief of police for several months in 2021 after former Police Chief Terry Sult stepped down early that year.

Williams said Ferguson raised him, having been in his life since he was 8 years old. “He’s the only person I reference as ‘Dad,’” Williams said.

He added that Ferguson attended the February 2020 hearing in the trespassing case.

Ferguson said he doesn’t remember McClanahan’s exact words at the hearing, but said the officer testified that Williams told him “that his father was gonna take care of the ticket.”

“That’s what I got out of it, like I had connections or something,” Ferguson said. “And immediately you can see the judge is like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s not gonna happen.’ You could just feel it — and just ‘guilty.’”

Ferguson said he believed the officer lied in court, and he later shared what happened with Hampton Commonwealth’s Attorney Anton Bell.

Bell confirmed this week that he heard from Ferguson about the case. The prosecutor said he called his counterpart in Norfolk, then-Commonwealth’s Attorney Greg Underwood, “and asked him to look into the matter.”

When Underwood told Bell the Norfolk City Attorney was standing by McClanahan’s version of events, Bell said he sent Underwood a copy of Williams’ cellphone recording that “appeared to contradict the officer’s version.”

Bell said Underwood told him he’d pass it on to the Norfolk City Attorney.

But nothing came of that, Williams’ federal lawsuit maintains. While the City Attorney’s Office “knew that Officer McClanahan lied,” the complaint said, the office “continued to pursue the criminal charges in an attempt to obtain a conviction.”

Williams appealed the trespassing conviction to Norfolk Circuit Court. Before the hearing on Sept. 15, 2020, Williams said a prosecutor told him they’d drop the charge if he apologized to McClanahan.

“I refused and said absolutely not,” Williams said.

Either way, the judge tossed the case, dismissing the charge before even hearing Williams’ side of the story.

McClanahan couldn’t be reached for this story. Norfolk Police Sgt. Will Pickering, the department’s spokesman, declined to comment about the case, referring a call to the Norfolk City Attorney’s Office. Deputy City Attorney Michael Beverly said the office “can’t comment on pending litigation.”

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The Ocean View car crash

On Sept. 30, 2020, about two weeks after the trespassing case was dismissed, Williams headed out that morning to get a smoothie for his wife, then pregnant with the couple’s second child.

Just after 11:30 a.m., a pickup truck crossed a median on a bridge on Shore Drive, near Pretty Lake Avenue in Norfolk, crashing into Williams’ Mercedes that was heading in the other direction.

The truck flipped and crashed through a metal bridge railing, landing upside down in a marshy area about 40 feet below. The engine and other parts from Williams’ Mercedes were strewn on Shore Drive.

Officer body camera footage that Haddad’s firm obtained under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act shows an eyewitness telling police the other driver was “in a trance” or asleep at the wheel when he clipped a tree and crossed the median.

That witness estimated the pickup was going about 70 mph before the wreck, according to footage of the witness’ statement.

Police interviewed the driver of the Dodge Ram pickup, a Naval officer, in an ambulance. The body camera footage shows him appearing to respond lucidly to questions after being checked by medics. He tells an officer he was going about 45 mph when his steering wheel began wobbling and pulled the truck to the left.

“Haven’t had anything to drink or alcohol or anything like that?” a police officer asks.

“No sir,” the driver replies.

Police officers believed his story, the footage shows. They reason with each other that he wasn’t drinking because “he’s in his uniform” coming from his Navy pilot job, and they found no odor or other evidence of alcohol. Still, one police officer suggested they could “light him up” on various traffic charges.

Meantime, as Williams sat on the side of the roadway after the accident, he told a police officer that his father was assistant chief in Hampton. Williams asked the officer to call his father to tell him about the wreck, which the officer did.

“Did somebody say this had something to do with Hampton?” Police Sgt. M. Mitchell asks later on.

When another officer says Williams’ father is Hampton’s assistant chief, Mitchell points toward that officer and says pointedly, “This is the guy that gave McClanahan a ration of sh**.”

The body camera footage ends soon after and doesn’t capture any further discussions about that.

The investigating officer later wrote in an accident report that the pickup was going 35 mph. That’s the speed limit in that area of Shore Drive, and 10 miles less than the driver’s own estimated speed.

Boxes were checked on the report to indicate that neither driver was drinking. The Navy officer was charged with reckless driving for “failing to maintain control.”

Though the Navy officer resisted going to the hospital, the camera footage shows his command ordered him to go. The lawsuit said hospital tests found his blood alcohol content to be .30, or nearly four times the legal limit for intoxication.

But because Norfolk police never ordered the BAC tests, Haddad said, the hospital never relayed that information to the police, and the Navy officer wasn’t charged with DUI. The man pleaded no contest in March 2021 to reckless driving, and the charge was dismissed.

Haddad said the driver’s actions were “minimized” by the Norfolk police, which the lawyer said nearly sabotaged Williams’ efforts to get a proper insurance settlement for the crash. But Haddad said he’s now working through an insurance process to get Williams “full value for the case.”

Named as defendants in the federal lawsuit are Mitchell, McClanahan, Officer Steven Stone, several “John Doe” officers at the crash scene and the City of Norfolk. Though the complaint was filed a month ago, a federal judge has put it on hold because McClanahan is deployed overseas with the National Guard.

Williams says he’s still dealing with the impact of the accident, including plenty of physical therapy and mental health treatment as well as an upcoming back surgery.

“I’m terrified to get behind the wheel,” he said. “I’m in therapy twice a week — still — from seeing a car coming up the wrong way on the bridge. I think anybody would be pretty mentally messed up after that.”

Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, [email protected]