Questions remain over how a driver with three drunken driving convictions in D.C. was able to hang onto her license before she got behind the wheel in March and crashed into a ride-share vehicle, killing three people.
Nakita Walker, 43, was in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday for a preliminary hearing on second-degree murder charges. She pleaded not guilty to the charges last month.
During the hearing, a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. showed video from the body camera of the U.S. Park Police officer who pulled Walker over on March 15 on Rock Creek Parkway near the Kennedy Center, just moments before the deadly crash.
In the video, the officer approaches the Lexus that Walker was driving, asking, “Is there a reason we’re driving, like, 80 mph, blowing red lights?”
In the video, Walker tells the officer she was trying to get back home to her young son. A man in the passenger seat is seen dumping liquid out of a red Solo cup. Police later said it was Hennessy, a cognac brand.
When the officer asks for identification, he notices a package of marijuana in the man’s coat pocket and tells the couple they can’t have marijuana on federal land. Shortly after, the video shows Walker speeding off.
The officer did not pursue the vehicle.
Prosecutors said the Lexus reached speeds of nearly 100 mph before it crashed only a few minutes later into a Honda heading the opposite direction, killing three men.
Mohamed Kamara, 42, of Burtonsville, Maryland, was driving the Honda for Lyft at the time, with passengers and cousins Jonathan Cabrera Mendez, 23, and Olvin Torres Velasquez, 22, both of Arlington, Virginia, in the back seat.
Walker, who suffered a broken femur, sternum and wrist in the crash, had a blood alcohol content above the legal limit, according to prosecutors.
After her arrest late last month, Walker told police she didn’t remember much of the crash. She also told police her passenger — who has only been identified as Subject one in court documents — did not want to be pulled over because he was “dirty,” meaning he was carrying a gun at the time. She told police after they fled the traffic stop that he pushed down her leg on the gas pedal to go faster.
After the crash, the passenger initially ran from the crash site.
Following the hearing Tuesday, D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert Okun ordered Walker to remain held at the D.C. jail as the case against her continues.
DMV now says it did receive notification from court
Separately, D.C. officials are now acknowledging the District’s Department of Motor Vehicles had notice of Walker’s multiple previous DUI convictions.
Late last month, D.C. Deputy Mayor Lucinda Babers told DC Council members during a roundtable on traffic safety in the District that the D.C. Superior Court had seemingly failed to notify the DMV about Walker’s past convictions.
“D.C. DMV had notification of none of them,” she claimed.
However, the court system quickly rebutted the claim, saying data on Walker’s convictions were successfully transmitted to the D.C. DMV.
In a June 5 letter to D.C. Council member Charles Allen, the director of the D.C. DMV Gabriel Robinson acknowledged that his agency did, in fact, receive files from the court about Walker’s convictions.
However, due to a “technical miscommunication,” he said the files had not been processed.
Robinson’s letter insisted, however, that Babers’ statements to council members were accurate.
“At the time of the roundtable, DMV had been unable to verify that the previous convictions had been electronically transferred to DMV; therefore Deputy Mayor Babers’ statement during the roundtable was accurate,” he said in the letter.
Afterward, the DMV confirmed the files had been sent, “but not properly processed,” he said. “In researching the failure of the files to properly process, some technical changes to the files for transfer were discovered and these changes may have affected DMV’s ability to process the files.”
He said the DMV and D.C. Superior Court are working to ensure data is properly shared.
In 2021, the DMV suspended or revoked 2,068 licenses, according to Robinson’s letter. Last year, DMV suspended or revoked 1,915 licenses and, so far this year, the agency has suspended 1,029 licenses.
However, Robinson’s letter did not say how many times it had received notice from D.C. Superior Court that a license should be suspended.
A spokesman for D.C. Superior Court declined to comment on the letter.
In a tweet, Allen, the D.C. Council member, said the information in the DMV’s letter potentially reveals a bigger problem.
“There is a 0% chance she’s the only one — these failed systems are keeping dangerous drivers on the road,” Allen said. “This is more than just a ‘technical glitch.'”
After holding a hearing, DMV now tells me they actually had received conviction info but didn’t process it to suspend her license. There is a 0% chance she’s the only one-these failed systems are keeping dangerous drivers on the road. This is more than just a “technical glitch”. https://t.co/96gc6tDIub
— Charles Allen (@charlesallen) June 7, 2023
WTOP’s Megan Cloherty contributed to this report.
