VIRGINIA BEACH — A city police officer was charged Sunday with drunken driving and refusing to take a breath test after getting involved in an early morning crash, according to police.
Officers were alerted around 3:45 a.m. to an accident in the 2300 block of Huckleberry Trail, according to Virginia Beach police spokesman Ricky LaBlue. The residential street is off Nimmo Parkway, in the Princess Anne area.
James Robert Rasmussen, 42, was arrested and booked into the city jail, where he was ordered held without bond, court records show. The officer was arraigned Monday and is due back in court Wednesday for a bond hearing, said Macie Allen, a spokeswoman for the commonwealth’s attorney’s office.
Rasmussen didn’t have a lawyer at his arraignment and was appointed a pubic defender to represent him at his upcoming bond hearing, Allen said. He told the judge he plans to hire his own attorney.
Rasmussen was hired by the Virginia Beach police department in June 2023, LaBlue said. He’s assigned as a patrol officer in the operations division, but his duty status was under review Monday.