A Lexington police officer will serve a three-month unpaid suspension for pushing his way into a closed Waffle House and berating the security guard who tried to stop him — with his body camera off.

The Urban County Council approved the 90-day suspension for Officer Caleb Croney at its June 18 meeting, along with two lesser discipline cases: a written reprimand and retraining for a second police officer, and a written reprimand for a fire captain whose engine caused a collision during an emergency run. All three employees had accepted their punishments before the cases reached council, and all three were approved unanimously.

The Waffle House complaint

Police Chief Lawrence Weathers told the council that an internal formal complaint was sworn against Croney on Jan. 28 for misconduct and violating the department's body-worn-camera policy.

While working an off-duty assignment, Croney "engaged in a verbal altercation with a civilian security guard at the Waffle House, which had just closed for the evening," Weathers said. Croney entered to use the restroom after being told he would have to wait for approval. He "did not honor the wish of the employee and was rude, condescending and did not present himself in a professional image demanded by the Lexington Police Department," Weathers said. Croney never activated his body-worn camera during the exchange, as policy requires.

It was Croney's third formal complaint since he was hired in January 2020, Weathers said.

Croney's personnel file, released July 10 under the Kentucky Open Records Act and first reported by the Lexington Herald-Leader on Sunday, fills in the scene: the officer was working an off-duty detail at the Cook Out on South Broadway on Jan. 18 and walked next door to the closed Waffle House. When the guard told him the restaurant was private property, Croney argued he could go anywhere in Fayette County and suggested police assistance might not be provided to the business if requested, according to a complaint summary quoted by the paper. The guard was wearing his own body camera, and his employer, Golem Security Services, reported Croney to the department and provided the footage. In his Public Integrity Unit interview, Croney said his urgent need for a bathroom clouded his judgment and admitted his conduct was unprofessional, the Herald-Leader reported.

Croney's prior discipline

Council has voted on Croney's discipline twice before, according to the city's meeting record.

In September 2023, he accepted a two-week unpaid suspension and a 30-day loss of his take-home car over a May 2023 pursuit that began when someone in a passing vehicle pointed a gun at him. Weathers told the council at the time that Croney chased the car at high speed the wrong way down a one-way street, disregarded traffic controls, was not wearing his seat belt and activated his body camera late. "The charges did not outweigh the danger of the pursuit and Officer Croney did not self-terminate," the chief said.

This February, council approved a one-day unpaid suspension after supervisors — reviewing body-camera footage on their own, without a citizen complaint — documented what Weathers described as eight months of failures to communicate professionally and de-escalate encounters on and off duty, as The Lexington Times reported at the time. According to the Herald-Leader, the underlying incidents included threatening arrest at a domestic-disturbance call, arguing with an intoxicated man he had been sent to remove from a hospital, and pulling over a driver who honked at him in a roundabout, telling her not to leave, and never notifying dispatch of the stop.

The other two cases

Officer Steven Wilson, hired in May 2018, accepted a written reprimand and retraining after an internal complaint for unsatisfactory performance — his first formal complaint. Weathers said Wilson has had multiple issues in the past year, has been issued "numerous coaching and counseling letters," attended retraining, and still "has not met the established performance standard for the rank and position."

Fire Chief Jason Wells presented the fire department's lone case: a captain — identified in the meeting's closed-caption record as Kenneth Howl — accepted a written reprimand for violating the department's safe-operation-of-apparatus rule. Wells said the captain failed to come to a complete stop and adequately clear an intersection during an emergency response in April, resulting in a non-injury collision. It was his first documented offense since joining the department in May 2013.

Formal discipline of Lexington's sworn police and fire personnel is presented to the council for a public vote on the chief's recommendation once the employee has accepted it. The June 18 cases passed on voice votes without discussion.

Council statements cited in this story are from the LFUCG Granicus video record of the June 18, 2026 council meeting (disciplines begin at 1:10:04), and the Feb. 12, 2026 and Sept. 28, 2023 meetings, searchable at meetings.lexingtonky.news. Details from Officer Croney's personnel file are credited to the Lexington Herald-Leader's July 13 report.