SUSPECT SHOOTS POLICE IN INTERVIEW ROOM

Sep 30, 2023

Two police officers were shot inside an interview room at police headquarters Thursday morning by a man they had arrested after a high-speed car chase.

Police said Alvernon Coppedge Jr., 28, of the 100 block of Aspenwood Drive grabbed a pistol from the holster on the waist of one of the officers and fired once.

The bullet hit Patrol Officer Lester Bollinger, 49, in the right forearm and, passing through, struck Patrol Officer Nathan Windley, 34, in the left foot.

Several detectives who were nearby quickly subdued Coppedge and disarmed him before a second shot went off, Police Chief Pat Minetti said.

Bollinger was listed in stable condition at Sentara Hampton General Hospital Thursday night. Windley was in satisfactory condition and is expected to be released soon.

They are the first Hampton police officers wounded by gunfire since 1984.

Coppedge was being held in the lockup at the Circuit Court building without bond. He is charged with attempted capital murder of a police officer, maiming of a police officer and two counts of using a firearm in a felony.

Police said he has been convicted of armed robbery.

The episode began about 10:10 a.m. when police received a complaint about a suspicious man in a gray 1980 Toyota at Executive and Hardy Cash drives, north of Coliseum Mall.

A caller had reported "a man smoking a pipe in a car full of smoke," Minetti said.

As Hampton Officer George Barker approached the car, the driver sped away. Coppedge made a U-turn on Peabody, took Hardy Cash Drive onto Magruder Boulevard and took the ramp onto Interstate 64, heading east.

The driver threw something from the car, Sgt. Donnie Moore, police spokesman, said, and when investigators checked the roadway near Peabody Drive they found crack cocaine. Drug charges are pending.

Coppedge crashed into a guard rail on I-64 near County Street. State Trooper Jess Hazelwood, the only State Police officer involved in the pursuit, said the driver resisted officers when they tried to handcuff him in the wrecked Toyota.

Minetti said Coppedge's hands were cuffed behind his back when Bollinger escorted him to the interview room and waited for an investigator to start the interrogation. Minetti said. The room, 8 feet square, is on the bottom floor of the Public Safety Building. Detectives use it to interview suspects.

Coppedge complained the handcuffs were too tight and an officer was releasing one of them when Coppedge freed the hand and snatched Bollinger's pistol from his holster, Minetti said. "He freed himself real quick and then jumped on the officer," Minetti said.

He declined to say how the suspect managed to defeat the holster's safety lock. The holster has a leather strap that snaps across the top of pistol and a safety device that locks the trigger guard inside the holster.

"I don't think it's a bit unusual for someone who is handcuffed and does not appear to be violent to ask to loosen them up a little. It wasn't as though this was out in the field. He was already here at headquarters," Minetti said.

"It was totally unsuspected," he said. "We sit here and we could talk about 150 different ways this may or may not have happened. It was a freak incident." Minetti said the department will investigate whether the officers followed policy and procedure.

The Newport News Police Department does not have a policy that prohibits an officer from taking their pistol into the interrogation room, spokeswoman Lynn James said, but "our normal practice is that we do not take weapons into the interrogation room."

Bollinger, who had received a meritorious service award this year, will be 50 on Oct. 19. He is married and a 20-year veteran of the force. Windley, who is single, has served six years.

After ambulances had taken Bollinger and Windley to the hospital, seven officers emerged from the Public Safety Building carrying Coppedge. They placed him into the back of a brown Sheriff's Department van and drove him to Sentara Hampton General.

Coppedge had complained of sore ribs. After being examined, officers returned him to the van and drove to the lockup at the Circuit Court building where he was formally charged.

As Bollinger was awaiting surgery, several relatives who had talked to him in the emergency room said Les, as he is known, had wanted to be a police officer since he was a kid.

"He seems in good spirits. He's a fighter and he’ll pull through this with no problem," said Lela Rice, whose husband, John is a nephew of Bollinger's.

"As far as I can tell, he doesn't seem to be bitter in any way shape or form. It's part of the job and he's dealing with it very well," Rice, a radio traffic reporter, said.

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