LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Jemarcus Williams is a repeat DUI offender whose defiant driving habits landed him in court just three months ago.
Court records show Williams pleaded guilty on August 24 to driving with expired license plates... the most recent in a long list of violations, which revealed that this wasn't his first time endangering law enforcement.
On October 28, 2007, Williams did something that to this day gives prosecutors pause... A now eerie set of circumstances from a prior arrest.
"And I understand the age of that prior (arrest), but the similarities are very poignant," Prosecutor Shannon Clowers said during Williams first court appearance Friday morning.
Clowers recounted the details of the 2007 case in which Williams pleaded "no contest." He was later found guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol.
"Not necessarily unsimilar to this, there was an open container in the vehicle and he actually was driving so that a police officer had to swerve off of the road to avoid being hit by the defendant, which is what then caused the officer to pull him over in that case," Clowers explained.
In 2008, we found two citations within three months in two different jurisdictions--in the city of Las Vegas for driving on the wrong side of the road, then in North Las Vegas for driving on a revoked or suspended license--something he was cited for three times in three years from 2008-2010.
He was also cited in 2009 for failing to yield the right of way at a controlled intersection--which usually means running a red light.
While Williams continues his journey through the justice system, 13 Investigates discovered something else that could complicate the case. Video footage that has helped investigators piece together other crimes, and could provide key evidence in this one, is no longer available.
We spoke to Accident Reconstruction Engineer Michael Jorgensen in 2020. His company, National Traffic Video, had recently started recording and storing traffic video feeds from thousands of Nevada Department of Transportation cameras located at intersections, on traffic lights and freeways.
"And initially that was done for research purposes and what-not, but there's a wide ranging amount of things you can do with the videos," Jorgensen said.
Attorneys, insurance investigators, police, even the National Transportation Safety Board has used the recorded videos.
When we asked Jorgensen for traffic cam video of Thursday's crash that killed the two troopers, he said there was none because, as of late September, NDOT blocked them from recording.
We asked the state agency about that and they sent the following statement:
"Traffic cameras on NDOT-maintained roadways are in place for real-time monitoring of current traffic conditions and to assist our road operations centers and Nevada State Police with traffic flow and emergencies. As part of routine security practices and monitoring to maintain network reliability, NDOT recently discovered – and subsequently blocked – certain heavy users that were consuming an excessive amount of bandwidth allocated to traffic camera feeds, which was negatively impacting NDOT’s critical public safety work and the traveling public’s ability to monitor traffic conditions."
"It is a massive undertaking," Jorgensen said, "but the research you can get from capturing hundreds of accidents is... You really can't put a price tag on that."
Live video is available to the public through websites NDOT provides, but NDOT says it does not currently have the ability or resources to routinely record (or contract with a third party to record) their traffic camera feeds.
National Traffic Video says it's working to resolve that.
