The truck Nathaniel Lee Campbell was driving when he struck a Joint Expeditionary Base Fort Story police cruiser on Saturday, killing the sailor inside, had reached 81 miles per hour before impact, according to court documents obtained by Navy Times.
The collision took the life of Master-at-Arms 3rd Class Oscar Temores, who was responding to reports of a gate runner at the Virginia Beach base.
Campbell, 38, of Shenandoah, Virginia, was arraigned Friday in Virginia Beach General District Court on a lone charge of involuntary manslaughter.
Campbell requested a public defender and did not ask for bond when he appeared before Judge Sandra Menago, said Office of the Commonwealth Attorney’s spokeswoman Macie P. Allen.
Campbell is accused of driving onto Fort Story through an exit lane at Gate 8 and then crashing his vehicle head on into Temores’ cruiser.
Temores, 23, was taken to a hospital but later died. He had enlisted in the Navy in February 2018 and had been assigned to Virginia Beach since June of that year.
Video of Campbell’s arraignment provided to Navy Times shows that the proceeding lasted about 90 seconds.
He was dressed in an orange jail outfit with the right leg split to reveal a leg in a cast with what appeared to be pins inserted.
He used a walker to get into a wheelchair before being taken away.
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Campbell was in the area a “couple of days” before the fatal crash and had been unemployed since March, according to court documents.
He claimed his source of income came from an inheritance left by a parent.
He also has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for mishandling a firearm, assault and battery of a family member and a felony conviction for strangling another causing injury.
Campbell has declined requests for interview. His next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 24.
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Campbell’s arraignment capped a difficult week for the Navy.
Hours earlier at Naval Air Station Pensacola, a Saudi Arabian military student preparing to begin aviation training there opened fire in a classroom, killing three victims and injuring eight more before dying in an exchange of gunfire with law enforcement officers, according to state, Pentagon and Escambia County Sheriff’s officials.
And on Wednesday, a sailor gunned down three Department of Defense workers at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard Wednesday, killing two of them before taking his own life.
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly said in a prepared statement emailed to Navy Times that the entire Navy and Marine Corps are "struck and deeply saddened by the attacks within our own naval family over the past several days, at Little Creek, Virginia last week, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Wednesday, and today in Pensacola, Florida.
"These acts are crimes against all of us. Our prayers are with the families of the fallen and with the wounded. It is our solemn duty to find the causes of such tragic loss and ceaselessly work together to prevent them. Let us make concerted efforts to care for the families of those lost, and those wounded, visibly and not. Let us shepherd them through these first moments of despair, and make them, and our greater Naval family, whole and strong. "
Courtney Mabeus-Brown is the senior reporter at Air Force Times. She is an award-winning journalist who previously covered the military for Navy Times and The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., where she first set foot on an aircraft carrier. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy and more.
