Hampton officer arrested on DUI charge

4-year vet was off duty, in own vehicle

HAMPTON — A Hampton police officer was charged with DUI last week after he was found passed out at the wheel in a convenience store parking lot, court records say.

Tre’Quan J. Nunnally — a patrol officer with about four years on the force — was arrested March 14 at a 7-Eleven gas station on Woodland Road. He was off duty and in his personal vehicle at the time.

“We hold officers accountable just as we would any other,” Hampton Police Chief Terry Sult said Thursday, declining to elaborate because it’s a personnel matter. “We’re going to hold our own accountable, and see how it works out from here.”

Court records show that it took nearly nine hours — much longer than the normal time frame — for police to bring Nunnally before a Hampton magistrate on the charge.

When they got there, records show, the magistrate gave him a summons to appear in court rather than the standard practice in Hampton of locking up DUI defendants at least temporarily.

Nunnally was not charged with refusing to take a blood or breath test — even as court

documents say he rejected a breath test and spurned a search warrant allowing his blood to be drawn. Some local attorneys say a refusal charge might not have been possible because Nunnally was in a car on private property.

Hampton police wouldn’t comment on the case, the officers’ charging decisions, or the length of time it took to bring Nunnally before a magistrate.

“I’m unable to discuss the specifics of the investigation,” police spokesman Sgt. Reggie Williams said. On the time frame, he said only that “officers take the appropriate actions to complete the necessary investigatory steps for the situation at hand.”

Some local lawyers said that nearly nine hours to bring a DUI case before a magistrate is a far longer turnaround time than any prior case they’ve seen. But that time frame, they said, could explain the magistrate’s decision to issue a summons — given that a primary reason DUI defendants are locked up is to give the alcohol or drugs time to wear off. “I think he was probably sober at that point — and the magistrate is permitted to assess the defendant,” said Mario Stellute, a local lawyer who handles DUI cases.

Nunnally has not hired an attorney, and declined to comment when reached at home Wednesday.

The case began about 1 a.m. March 14 when Hampton police dispatchers got a call about a “man down” in a stopped car alongside a gas pump at the 7-Eleven at 343 Woodland Road in Fox Hill.

A veteran Hampton police officer, Sgt. Mark Kincaid, and a newer officer, Officer Amelio Carpenter, tried to wake Nunnally up “by repeatedly and loudly banging on the window and shouting” at him. They got no response.

“As officers attempted to arouse Mr. Nunnally, the vehicle began to (slowly) roll forward toward the exit/ entrance of the parking lot, which opened onto oncoming traffic lanes,” Master Hampton Police Officer James Moreland wrote in a criminal complaint.

Nunnally’s car stopped briefly, then again began rolling. “Sgt. Kincaid was forced to break the driver window, unlock the driver vehicle, and place the vehicle in park,” Moreland wrote in the complaint.

“Mr. Nunnally began to slowly move, but appeared incoherent and extremely sluggish,” Moreland wrote. Officers asked for his identification and whether he was OK, but “he continued to act sluggish and seemed confused and unable to answer questions.”

Nunnally, 24, began with the Hampton Police Division in May 2017, Williams said. He has typically worked the overnight shift in the city’s Wythe section.

The criminal complaint said Nunnally “eventually” stepped out of his car, appearing “slightly unsteady” on his feet and leaning against his car. Nunnally incorrectly thought Carpenter had been in the car with him, Moreland said, and wouldn’t answer when asked where he’d been or if he’d been drinking. Nunnally passed a sobriety test reciting part of the alphabet backwards, Moreland wrote, but had problems with a test to count backwards.

“Mr. Nunnally would not acknowledge the finger test, and then stated he will not be doing the one leg test and the stop-and-turn test,” Moreland said, adding that Nunnally “would not acknowledge most of what was said to him.”

The officers read Virginia’s implied consent law to Nunnally — a statute that requires drivers arrested on DUIs on Virginia’s public roadways to submit to a blood or breath test within three hours of the alleged offense. “Mr. Nunnally stated that he will not blow into anything,” the complaint said.

Moreland wrote that the police officers didn’t smell alcohol, but smelled marijuana coming from the car. “Based on Mr. Nunnally’s initial state and his sluggish reactions” — and failing to perform several of the sobriety tests — he was arrested on a DUI.

That’s a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by a year in jail. After the arrest, Moreland wrote, officers found a half-full bottle of Hennessy “in plain view” on the floor board, behind the passenger seat.

Nunnally was at taken to the Hampton Sentara CarePlex, with officers getting a warrant to have Nunnally’s blood drawn “to confirm the presence” of alcohol or drugs.

Hampton Magistrate Thomas P. Chisman Jr. signed off on that search warrant just before 7:53 a.m., nearly seven hours after the officers first encountered Nunnally. But when it came time to draw the blood, the complaint said, Nunnally “refused to permit blood samples to be obtained.”

“Even if they have a search warrant, hospitals won’t restrain a patient in order to get their blood,” said Timothy Clancy, a local lawyer familiar with the process.

Police then took Nunnally to the Hampton Magistrate’s Office. Chisman signed off on the DUI charge at 9:41 a.m. — nearly nine hours into the case — and released Nunnally on a summons.

That’s out of the norm: In the overwhelming number of Hampton DUI cases, people charged with drunk driving are fingerprinted, photographed, and booked into a secure lockup area that’s adjacent to the magistrate’s office and part of the City Jail.

“In my experience, it’s highly unusual to be released on simply a summons rather than being booked and processed,” Stellute said. “That’s not been my experience over the years in Hampton.”

A more than eight-hour turnaround time, Stellute said, “is unusually lengthy,” even for cases involving search warrants and hospital blood draws. “In all the DUIs I’ve done over the years, I’ve never seen such a separation in time ... where there’s no accident involved.”

Clancy agreed that the time it took to bring Nunnally before a magistrate was much longer than normal. But he said it’s not the first time he’s seen a magistrate release a DUI defendant on a summons.

“It is unusual, but it is not that unusual,” he said. “If you’re getting medical treatment at the hospital, and it takes three or four hours, by the time we get to the magistrate . ... the person sobered up and the magistrate releases them on a summons. So I don’t attach a lot of significance to that.”

Clancy pointed out that the state’s implied consent law doesn’t apply to driving impaired on private property — such as a 7-Eleven parking lot — but only to public roadways, which could explain why the refusal charges weren’t filed.

Nunnally is on administrative leave with pay from the Hampton Police Division as the internal investigation proceeds. He’s due back in court April 1.