Columbia man convicted after running over Franklin police officer in 2022

A Columbia man has been found guilty of reckless aggravated assault and other crimes after he ran over a Franklin police officer on Interstate 65 in 2022.

Initially, 28-year-old Roy Gene Nicholson, III, was charged with aggravated assault on a first responder, for which he was found not guilty, instead being found guilty of the lesser charge above.

Nicholson was also found guilty of three other charges: evading arrest with a deadly weapon (vehicle), possession of marijuana with the intent to sell, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony.

Nicholson's convictions were returned after nearly three hours of jury deliberation on Friday, the last of a three-day trial presided over by Williamson County Circuit Judge Deanna Johnson.

Defense attorney E. Kendall White IV White told The News that he was “disappointed” with the verdict and plans on appealing the verdict, citing numerous “constitutional issues.”

As previously reported, Nicholson was arrested on Sunday, April 24, 2022, minutes after the incident that was recorded on an FPD dash camera and later released to the public. This week, a recording of the entire incident was played for the jury.

Nicholson was pulled over around 10:20 a.m. by FPD Officer (now Sargent) Dustyn Stevens for his illegal window tint and driving slow in the fast lane, despite no other cars being immediately around him.

Stevens asked Nicholson to step out of the white Infiniti sedan after he saw a partially concealed semi-automatic pistol in the passenger seat and a pistol magazine visible in the car's open center console. 

That gun was later seen on another officer's body-worn camera following Nicholson's arrest.

Nicholson had a legal handgun carry permit and presented it to Stevens while they spoke outside of their vehicles, a conversation that began with a literal handshake.

Stevens was the first witness to take the stand and testified to smelling the “very strong odor of unburnt cannabis” coming from Nicholson’s car when he approached the passenger-side window. 

Another officer testified that he didn’t smell cannabis when he was attempting to help Stevens pull Nicholson from the car. 

The first day of the trial included testimony from law enforcement and witnesses and the playing of several police body-worn and in-car camera recordings.

In the video, Nicholson denied having any marijuana – a term that drew an objection from White throughout the trial; the court instead favored the term cannabis.

Stevens then attempted to handcuff Nicholson after suspecting that he was about to flee. Nicholson pulled away and resisted the physical detainment, leading Stevens to take Nicholson to the ground on the side of the interstate.

Nicholson continued to pull away from Stevens, who had dropped his handcuffs during the struggle, with Nicholson pleading with Stevens to let him go.

"Hold up – we're talking – chill, chill. …You don't gotta slam me. ...I'm not trying to fight. …I swear I'm not going anywhere,” Nicholson yelled in the videos.

At points, Nicholson held onto Steven's patrol vehicle to try and stop Stevens’ from using what he said were “soft-hands techniques” against what White called Nicholson's “passive noncompliance.”

Stevens' body-worn camera was knocked off his uniform during the struggle, which was captured both visually and audibly from the body-worn camera and his dash camera.

Nicholson eventually pulled free of Stevens and ran to his car. A second FPD officer arrived on scene and both officers attempted to pull Nicholson from the driver's seat.

Nicholson accelerated, knocking both officers to the ground. The rear driver's side wheel then ran over Stevens' legs and left hand, all of which was captured on camera.

Stevens testified that his hand was “crushed” and he is now in “constant back pain" from numerous fractures. He also suffered cuts, bruising and road rash in what he said was "certainly the worst pain I've ever experienced."

Stevens was transported by ambulance to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The other officer suffered minor injuries to his knee and refused medical treatment at the scene.

Two civilian witnesses to the scuffle were later passed by Nicholson's car on West McEwen Drive and called 911 to report that the car was driving “aggressively,” not realizing at the time that the car was the same one involved in the traffic stop gone wrong.

The witnesses followed Nicholson’s car in their vehicle, ending at the Mallory Lane Walmart parking lot, where Nicholson, who was wearing a blue Walmart employee shirt, had been heading when he was pulled over by Stevens.

Police arrested Nicholson in the Walmart parking lot, and he was transported to a local hospital after complaining of difficulty breathing. 

In another body-worn camera footage of his arrest, Nicholson told police that Stevens was “choking me out,” a claim that Stevens denied. Nicholson was released from the hospital with no injuries.

None of the police videos show Stevens choking Nicholson. For several moments, Stevens and Nicholson are not in the video's frame.

Nicholson denied running anyone over, and while he initially didn't consent to his vehicle being searched, he soon gave consent in the Walmart parking lot.

Police seized Nicholson's gun, three magazines and several bullets from his car, as well as a “large amount of cash” from Nicholson's pockets, initially reported by FPD in 2022 as approximately $3,600.

A Minnie Mouse-themed backpack containing approximately 199.5 grams (just under half a pound) of dry cannabis plant in several plastic bags was also found on a sidewalk around half a mile away on West McEwen Drive. 

Stevens testified to seeing the backpack, which was also captured on his body-worn camera, in Nicholson’s car. 

Police were only able to pull one fingerprint from a small plastic package inside the book bag, but the fingerprint matched that of another person unrelated to the case.

Assistant District Attorney Carlin Hess also introduced into evidence 15 pages of text messages recovered from Nicholson's phone, which featured a conversation about a planned sale of cannabis.

The defense argued that Stevens couldn't smell the difference between legal low-THC-level cannabis and higher-level THC cannabis that the state refers to as marijuana, even asking witnesses to smell a sample of legal cannabis to show the indecipherable odor. The prosecution asked why someone would throw out a bag of allegedly legal cannabis from a car fleeing a traffic stop.

The defense also argued that it was not Nicholson, but Stevens who ultimately escalated the traffic stop. 

“He was supposed to be in control of that situation,"  White said during the defense's closing argument. "He lost control of that situation because he made bad judgment calls. He should have cited him and released him." 

“If he wanted to investigate further, he could have gotten a warrant, if he believed that there was something illegal going on, because only smell is not enough. …This should have been a traffic citation, release him and move on, but officer Stevens made it more because he wanted it to be more and he got aggressive,” White said, calling the incident an "accident" committed by a "frightened" citizen who was attempting to flee after White said Nicholson was "assaulted" by Stevens.

Witnesses included a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) forensic scientist and two Tennessee Department of Agriculture scientists. The Department of Agriculture helped the TBI with testing of the cannabis samples, which detailed that the Delta-9 THC levels of the cannabis were at 13.666 percent, while the state only allows 0.3 percent for legal cannabis.

On the final day of the trial, the defense called several witnesses including a plant and soil science expert who testified that storage conditions and the time from when the cannabis was seized to when it was tested could have changed its THC levels from a legal amount of THC to an illegal amount.

That expert witness called TBI's forensic cannabis testing “terrible science.”

The defense's expert witness testimony came one day after NewsChannel 5 reported that a Gallatin man's 2020 marijuana charge was overturned four years after he was convicted in a Sumner County court. 

According to that story, the TBI is now saying that some of its past testing of cannabis has been deemed to be "inconclusive," something that could have a statewide impact for those who have been convicted of marijuana crimes.

Despite the new questions surrounding TBI's testing, the jury ruled that Nicholson was in possession of illegal marijuana and not any legal (or once-legal) variety of cannabis, as argued by the defense.

“The big takeaway here is that any time someone decides to possess a drug, whatever that drug is, for sale or distribution, and they carry a firearm with them, they put themselves at risk, they put the public at risk and they put law enforcement at risk,” Hess said.

“We continue to hope that in the future the state will work to educate the officers in their training to preserve citizen's rights and hopefully we can avoid these situations in the future, in which people get hurt because of a lack of training," White said.

Nicholson remains free on bond and is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28. He is facing a mandatory three years in state prison for possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony. The remaining three charges are each Class D felonies, which carry two-to-four-year sentences at 30 percent with release eligibility.

In June of 2022, Nicholson was also indicted on federal charges of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. It's unclear at this time how his state-level conviction may impact his federal case.