By: Charles Romans
Carter County Times
A recent video posted on the YouTube Channel of Civil Rights Lawyer John H. Bryan shows the arrest of Grayson resident Nathan Stephens by former Grayson Police officer Michael Bell for driving under the influence (DUI). According to 911 calls obtained for the video, and testimony of the other driver seen on body camera footage, Stephens and the other individual were involved in a minor accident. The accident occurred in October of last year when a vehicle being driven by the other driver, a minor, backed out of a driveway in his neighborhood and struck the vehicle Stephens was driving.
Most of the interaction between the police officers and Stephens was recorded on the body cam of Officer Bell, with the exception of time when Bell obscured the camera and covered the microphone while he spoke to his superior officer at the scene. Throughout the video shown Bell repeatedly accused Stephens of being under the influence of alcohol and stating that he could smell alcohol – this in spite of the evidence that when Stephens agreed to take a breathalyzer test, the result was zero alcohol detected.
In spite of the fact that Bell testified that Stephens was “being erratic,” his body camera footage clearly shows that Stephens was sitting calmly, and easily passed not only the breathalyzer test but also appeared to pass other, more subjective field sobriety tests that Bell insisted on administering. Inconsistencies between camera footage and Bell’s filed report were glaring and egregious. In addition to these issues, Bell refused to allow Stephens to call his lawyer before taking any tests, and advises Stephens that if his lawyer were present then he would become a witness to the investigation and unable to represent him anyway.
The end result was that Stephens was held overnight at the Carter County Detention Center, unable to secure release until the following day, on a charge for which the body camera footage shows insufficient cause. Body camera footage also indicates that Bell was aware this would be the result, with the officer even commenting on this in a flippant manner to his supervisor who was also present at the scene.
Stephens was given a hearing to determine whether he legally refused to submit to a blood test, and it was determined that he was not properly advised of the ramifications of a refusal. He was charged with DUI, failure to have an operator’s license in his possession, and leaving the scene of an accident (though he had returned before the officers arrived on the scene). The DUI charges were dismissed, the failure to have operator’s license in his possession was dismissed when proof was shown that he had a valid operator’s license, and rather than proceeding to trial the leaving the scene charges were diverted. A diversion in this case means there is no guilty plea required as long as the person in question has no other similar issues for a 90-day period. Stephens never admitted any fault nor stipulated probable cause.
Attorney Derrick Willis, who represents Stephens, stated that his client’s constitutional rights were clearly violated.
“He suffered real damages over this,” Willis said. “So, he does have legal recourse. And we are still discussing how to move forward with a potential lawsuit.”
Grayson Mayor Troy Combs shared a message concerning the incident and the video which sparked community outrage and numerous comments. In the statement Combs said that Bell had been with the Grayson Police Department for 13 months, but had not been with the department since February of 2026.
“Communication was received after the first referenced incident,” Combs said, acknowledging a second incident with the same officer. “And the concerns were noted by the department as the case was going through the judicial process. Mr. Bell tendered his resignation prior to the resolution of both cases.”
Combs then made reference to the fact that, while Bell acted inappropriately, it was footage from the body cameras council approved that brought these incidents to light.
“We are fortunate to have the resources necessary to have secured body cameras for our officers, and did so in October of 2025,” Combs said in his message. “Our officers have embraced and will continue to embrace the utilization of body cams for the level of accountability and transparency that they provide for our internal operations and for the public.”
Stephens attorney also noted that his client didn’t harbor any ill will toward police officers prior to this incident, or to law enforcement in general. His issues were simply with the officers involved in his arrest.
“Mr. Stephens wants to make it very clear that he has never had any problem with the Grayson Police Department before this incident,” Willis said, “which was another reason he was completely flabbergasted when this happened.”
Ultimately, the charges were dismissed due to lack of evidence, Willis said. Willis, who had himself served as prosecutor in the past, said there were only a few cases where he experienced any problem with the GPD.
“Coincidently, they also involved the same officer.”
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
The supervisor should have been removed as well for allowing this. He allowed this cop to harass this young individual and had the responsibility to step in when this went this far south
The system is broken. The first problem is lack of proper screening of individuals applying to be cops. We are hiring too many people that lack the proper temperament for the job they are seeking. The second problem is the lack of proper training. It is insane that we require more training for people to cut hair than we do to carry a badge, gun, and the ability to ruin peoples’ lives with the full authority of the state. The third problem is then inability to hold these people accountable.The powerful govt. sector unions protect these individuals making it all but impossible to fire them. The fourth problem is structural. The prosecutors being an elected official have to not only work with the cops, but actually require cops cooperation to be successful in prosecuting criminals and in order to be successfully re-elected because they are answerable to the public. The cops have no such accountability so if the prosecutor acts against a cop, the rest of the cops can stop being cooperative in retaliation AND use their powerful union money and influence to help unseat the prosecutor at the next election. That is coupled that when a cop is caught falsifying reports or using excessive force the prosecutor has to help in the cover-up or turn a blind eye because if the cop is actually legally found to have done either it opens up a can of worms because all of the previous cases the cop was involved with then become legally questionable– which could lead to many more cases actually being overturned, which again hurts the prosecutors future electability.
The next problem is the inability of the court system to allow individuals to actually properly seek redress when they have been wronged by the completely court-created “qualified immunity.” Not only did the SCOTUS grant LEOs sweeping protection from civil action out of whole cloth but they also have granted them sweeping powers that infringe on our rights. Almost all 4th and 5th amendment jurisprudential precedence is completely created by the SCOTUS creating policy (read: law) that is not found in actual legislation. They didn’t just interpret what the law actually said– they created law through their “interpretation” not based on the plain meaning of the amendments or statutes but by inserting what they thought the law should be.
The last problem is the most difficult– the inability to actually seek reform. Because our country has become politically polarized, you have one party that wants to tear the system down and blame all of the problems on race. The other party wants to pretend that there are no problem and that we should all blindly trust the police and the system [that same party is also screaming that the federal DOJ is corrupt and being politically weaponized against them but can’t comprehend that local and state systems are also corrupt]. That leaves those of us who can see the problems without anyone in power willing to actually hear us. One side will ignore us because we know the issue has nothing to do with racial animus and the other side who will accuse us of being cop-haters. I fear that things are only going to get worse since there appears no way to bring about positive reforms.