Brandon Williams’ legal ordeal began in January 2020 when he was confronted by a lying white cop in a Virginia public park over a questionable trespassing allegation. The officer later falsely accused the Black man in court of being one of the “rudest, most combative suspects” he had ever come across.
Norfolk police officer John McClanahan further lied when he told the judge the following month that Williams had told him he did not have to comply with his orders since his father was a police chief from a nearby agency.
Unbeknownst to McClanahan, Williams had recorded the interaction, proving he said none of that – which led to Norfolk police retaliating against him.
In an exclusive interview with Atlanta Black Star, Williams, 40, said the judge stopped him from explaining his side of the story after 30 seconds during the trial, turning to the cop to hear his version.
“He cuts me off, lets the officer talk, asking ‘what happened that night?’” Williams explained. “The officer immediately says, ‘the suspect over there was one of the rudest, most combative suspects I have ever come across,’ so immediately I am dumbfounded.”
“Then he takes it further and says, ‘He told me his dad was chief in the other city and he doesn’t have to listen to me, and he doesn’t have to listen to my authority.’”
When the judge asked Williams if he had anything to say, he told the judge there were no signs informing people not to trespass in the park and also informed the judge of the recording which would prove McClanahan committed perjury.
“I said, ‘Your honor, I promise you this officer is lying and I have proof. I have him on tape.’”
But the judge refused to listen to the recording, convicting Williams of misdemeanor trespassing for having parked two minutes after hours inside a popular Norfolk park named Community Beach Park, ordering Williams to be booked and photographed.
“He said, ‘you’re guilty,” so I had to get a mugshot and be processed but I was released at the same time,” he said.
“I then met my dad in the hallway and he was irate because he had listened to the tape, he knew the officer had lied,” Williams said.
Williams’ recording had captured McClanahan ordering him to provide a thumb print after signing the trespassing citation – which Williams found strange but complied with. However, that portion of the interaction was removed from the body camera videos later obtained by Williams.
Williams told his father, Kenneth Ferguson, who at the time was interim police chief in Hampton, the city’s first Black police chief, and his father was shocked and said, “we don’t do that, that’s not protocol.”
Father Gets Involved
Ferguson had been in the courtroom that day and was livid about how the trial turned out.
“He was pissed off at the judge, but it was more so an officer lied on the stand because he had already heard my recording,” Williams said.
Ferguson shared the recording with the local district attorney, Hampton Commonwealth Attorney Anton Bell, who shared it with Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney Greg Underwood.
“Now my dad is in the middle of this because he is an officer of the law and he has to let someone know this officer is lying,” Williams said. “And he saw that this officer can go testify and ruin so many other cases.”
Underwood shared the recording with Norfolk City Attorney Bernard Pishko whose office mostly oversees civil matters for the city.
Pishko called McClanahan into his office to discuss the matter but ended up siding with the cop despite the audio evidence proving he had committed perjury.
Williams appealed the conviction, which went before another judge in September 2020 where prosecutors offered him a plea deal to apologize to the cop in exchange of having his case nolle prosequi, meaning they won’t prosecute.
“I told them absolutely not,” Williams said. “I was not apologizing. This cop lied on me, and I could not believe that they were asking me to apologize.”
The judge dismissed the case after listening to arguments from prosecutors and Williams, not even bothering to listen to the recording, expressing surprise he had been cited in the first place.
“She looks at me and says, ‘Young man, I’m dismissing this. This case shouldn’t have been here in the first place,’” he said.
“So I leave the courtroom, I’m happy I won. I’m vindicated. Now I can go to internal affairs and report this officer.”
But then the retaliation began before he even had a chance to file his complaint.
Cops Retaliate
Two weeks after the appeal reversal, Williams was struck head-on by a drunk driver traveling at least 70 mph, who was revealed to have had a .30 blood alcohol concentration, according to a report from the local hospital.
Norfolk police took that opportunity to retaliate against Williams after one of the officers recognized him for having exposed McClanahan.
“This is the guy that gave McClanahan a ration of sh_t,” said one of the Norfolk police officers who responded to the scene, according to body camera footage.
The footage shows witnesses telling the officers the man in the truck that struck Williams, Rex Aman, a pilot for the U.S. Navy who was in full uniform, had been traveling at least 70 mph when he swerved into the path of Williams on a bridge.
Aman’s truck ended up going over the bridge, while the engine from Williams’ Mercedes ended up strewn on the bridge. Both men miraculously survived the crash, according to both police and witnesses on the scene. But Williams suffered extensive injuries.
Despite witnesses and evidence showing Aman was traveling at a very high rate of speed, the cops claimed in their report he was traveling at 35 mph when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into Williams’ car, blaming it on defective steering. They also claimed there were no skid marks but body camera video shows a witness pointing out the skid marks.
The police report also claimed Aman had not been drinking, but none of the officers gave him a breathalyzer, simply asking him if he had been drinking, which he denied.
It was only at the hospital, about an hour later, that a blood test revealed him to have a .30 blood alcohol concentration, which is almost four times the legal limit of .08.
Williams also said Aman’s wife was allowed to gather items from inside her husband’s truck before the cops had secured the scene.
The fact that the cops lied in their reports made it more difficult for Williams to file a claim with the man’s insurance company but he eventually settled three years later.
“I didn’t get near what I needed to pay for all the injuries that I have,” he said. “I have permanent nerve damage on the right side of my body. I have a condition called CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome).”
“It’s a nerve condition caused by blunt force trauma, and it is called the suicide syndrome because it is literally the most painful syndrome that you can possibly have, let alone all the mental stuff that I’m going through.”
“The psychical pain is one thing, but the mental injuries far exceed the physical pain,” he said. “It damn near tore my family apart.”
Setting Precedent
Williams filed a federal lawsuit against the Norfolk police officers in September 2022, accusing them of retaliation, but a judge dismissed the case in July 2023, prompting him to file another appeal.
In October 2024, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision to dismiss the case, stating the following in its 14-page opinion.
Officer John D. McClanahan first falsely charged Williams with misdemeanor trespassing. He then perjured himself at trial to obtain a conviction. On appeal, Williams exposed McClanahan’s perjury through a recording he had taken of the incident, and the state appellate court ordered the charge dismissed.
Two weeks later, Norfolk police officers, including McClanahan, responded to an accident in which Williams had been hit by a speeding drunk driver. They recognized him immediately as “the guy that gave McClanahan a ration of sh_t.” The officers allegedly falsified information on the accident report with the intent of depriving Williams of his property right to sue the other driver.
Williams brought a claim of retaliation for the exercise of his First and Sixth Amendment rights against the police officers. The district court granted the officers’ motions to dismiss Williams’ retaliation claim, holding that he failed to plead an adverse action, and granted their motions as to his conspiracy claim upon finding that he failed to plead a constitutional violation.
Considering the facts as pled, Williams has adequately alleged that the officers’ intentional misrepresentation on the accident report would likely deter him from recording police activity and defending himself at trial in the future. Therefore, we reverse the district court’s dismissal of his retaliation claim.
It was a huge victory for Williams, who had never given up in his fight for justice, taking it upon himself to request the body camera videos that exposed the lies and retaliation, spending two years fighting the case on his own before he brought in attorneys.
“It sets precedent for law officials to now be held accountable of what they put on police reports,” he said.
“And prior to the new case law, that was not a given. The panel agreed that a police officer can be held accountable by making a false police report with animus, and it is absolutely admissible in court now.”
“Prior, it wasn’t admissible in court because they said a police report wasn’t admissible.”
“It was a major victory and hopefully gives people victory and justice in the future for what the Fourth Circuit was brave enough to step up and do something about.”
Williams, who is scheduled to go to trial in September, has been considering going to law school.
“I went to Morehouse (College) to study psychology, and I was going to go the whole medical route, but honestly, after all of this, I’m definitely considering law in some capacity to help people out.”
Watch the video below showing bodycam footage from the initial altercation with McClanahan, as well as from the car crash where they chose to retaliate against him.
