A gallon of milk. A wrist grab. A five-year sentence.

Marquis Donte Chisholm Jr. was leaving a Newport News corner store with a friend at about 6 p.m. on June 28, 2023. He carried a gallon of milk in daylight.

Officer McLaughlin saw an L-shaped bulge near his waistband and believed it was a firearm. Officers Smith and John approached. A wrist grab turned the encounter into a detention, police recovered a gun, and Chisholm later received five years of active incarceration plus one year suspended.

On June 16, 2026, the Court of Appeals of Virginia ruled that the detention violated the Fourth Amendment. The ruling makes the officers’ reasons for stopping him, and the timing of that decision, central to the account. [1]

THE ENCOUNTER IN THE COURT RECORD

McLaughlin had not received a call reporting a crime. None of the officers knew Chisholm’s criminal history. Seeing what appeared to be a gun was the starting observation, rather than information that this particular person was prohibited from possessing one.

Chisholm denied having a gun and objected to being searched. He stepped backward slowly. McLaughlin approached from behind and grabbed his wrist.

Smith characterized the backward movement as “pre-flight” behavior. Both Smith and McLaughlin nevertheless testified that Chisholm never tried to flee. That distinction matters: a label applied to movement and testimony describing what the person actually did are different pieces of evidence.

The appellate opinion recounts the encounter and the officers’ testimony. The illustration accompanying this story is an AI reconstruction, not documentary photography. Readers should use the opinion to evaluate the facts, rather than treating the artwork as evidence of the stop.

The opinion identifies the officers by surname; it says their first names were not identified in the record. That limit should be retained when connecting the case to employee information. A similar surname alone cannot establish an officer’s full identity. [1]

WHY THE REASONS FOR DETENTION MATTERED

The officers relied on the possible firearm, the area’s broad high-crime characterization, nervousness and backward steps. The appellate court found those circumstances did not provide the particularized, objective facts needed to justify this seizure.

That is the ruling in this encounter. It should not be stretched into a claim that police can never approach someone, that every observation of a firearm is irrelevant or that any stop in the same neighborhood is unconstitutional.

The court’s question was whether these officers had an adequate basis to detain this person at that point. A broad description of an area cannot replace an explanation of what linked the individual to suspected criminal activity.

Timing is important to the account. The firearm recovered after the wrist grab does not erase the court’s finding about the justification available when detention began. Readers need both parts of the sequence: what officers knew before the seizure and what the search produced afterward.

Likewise, the later conviction does not make the appeal meaningless. Chisholm entered a conditional guilty plea that preserved this challenge. The legality of obtaining the evidence remained a question for appellate review.

These distinctions explain why an apparently simple narrative—police found a gun and obtained a conviction—does not fully describe the case.

THE SENTENCE AND THE LIMITED APPEAL

In October 2024, Chisholm entered the conditional plea to firearm possession by a violent felon. The sentence included five active years and one suspended year.

The June 2026 unpublished memorandum opinion is Record No. 1830-24-1. It reversed the trial court’s ruling on suppression, ordered the resulting evidence suppressed and sent the case back for further proceedings.

Only the firearm conviction was before the appellate court. The ruling does not establish that every charge in the broader plea agreement was dismissed. The sources reviewed do not establish the final post-remand outcome.

A remand is an instruction for further proceedings, rather than a complete account of what happened afterward. A subsequent court order or docket entry would be needed before reporting a final dismissal, new disposition or release attributable to this appeal.

The practical follow-up is therefore specific: identify what occurred in the firearm case after the ruling and distinguish it from any other matter in the plea agreement. Neither the original sentence nor the appellate reversal should be presented as the complete current case history.

A POLICY COMPARISON WITH A DATE LIMIT

NNPD’s publicly posted Arrest Procedures policy, OPS-405, dated September 9, 2024, requires reasonable suspicion of a crime for an investigative detention. It gives readers a departmental policy comparison with the issue decided in court. [2]

That edition postdates the June 2023 stop. Its publication cannot establish which wording governed the officers on the encounter date.

A policy review would need the earlier edition, its effective dates and any later changes. A training review would need records explaining what officers were taught and whether the appellate decision prompted additional instruction.

A posted rule, a court finding and an internal review answer related but separate questions. The posted rule describes an expectation; the opinion evaluates this encounter; review and training records would show the department’s response.

QUESTIONS FOR DEPARTMENT AND PROSECUTION LEADERSHIP

Chief Steve Drew should explain whether NNPD reviewed the stop, what findings that review produced and whether training or supervision changed. The Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office should explain how it handled the case after the ruling and how similar suppression issues are reviewed.

Those are requests for an account, not assertions that no review occurred. The materials cited here do not establish a departmental response or a final post-remand result.

Useful follow-up records include the event-date policy, any completed review, dated training changes and the subsequent court disposition. They would allow readers to distinguish a promised response from a documented action.

The reporting should also preserve the officers’ actual roles and the court’s limited holding. A constitutional ruling about a particular detention does not establish every allegation someone might make about the department or each officer.

SHARING A RELATED EXPERIENCE

Residents with a comparable experience can send dated records, case numbers or supporting documents privately to Audit Newport News. Keep identifying information about children, account details and unrelated private material out of public comments.

A firsthand account supplies a lead; records can establish what happened and what the institution did afterward. This case shows why both the encounter and the response deserve scrutiny, with the court’s findings and the remaining unknowns clearly separated.