Thirteen Seconds
Two Lexington police discipline cases wrapped up this summer in very different rooms. Officer Caleb Croney accepted a ninety-day suspension over a Waffle House confrontation, and the council voted on it in public. Officer Marcus Olmstead — whose own body camera showed him texting for roughly thirteen seconds before rear-ending a driver he then blamed — resigned days before the chief could act on a termination recommendation, and no discipline was ever imposed. Kay and Pete walk through how Lexington's police discipline system works, and what happens when a case never gets to finish.
Transcript
PeteKay, there's a line in a Lexington police investigative file that stops you cold. From the moment the body camera comes on, the officer is actively texting on his phone — for roughly thirteen seconds, right up to and at the moment of the collision.
KayAnd moments after the crash, that officer told the woman he'd just rear-ended: yeah, you stopped so quick that I couldn't stop.
Pete[pause] A review board looked at all of it and recommended he be fired. The chief never got the chance to make the call.
KayFrom The Lexington Times, this is Town Branch — the stories running under Lexington. I'm Kay.
PeteAnd I'm Pete. Today is about how police discipline actually works in this city — and how it sometimes doesn't finish. Two Lexington officers' cases wrapped up this summer, and they ended in completely different rooms.
KayOne accepted his punishment, and the council voted on it in public, the way the system is designed to end.
PeteThe other resigned days before his meeting with the chief. No punishment was ever imposed. And the only reason we can tell you his story is that the department quietly posted the file on the internet.
KayStart on Alexandria Drive, just after four in the afternoon, December eleventh, twenty twenty-five. Officer Marcus Olmstead is on duty, in a marked cruiser, driving in normal traffic — no lights, no emergency. Cars ahead of him slow for big metal plates covering a hole in the road. The car in front of him stops. He doesn't.
PeteThe driver hits her face in the collision. The supervisor who responded later told investigators she was bleeding from the mouth, though she declined medical attention. And on the body camera, moments after impact, Olmstead tells her — yeah, you stopped so quick that I couldn't stop.
KayShe answers: I stopped slow. I wasn't stopping fast.
PeteThen he gives his sergeant an explanation. He says he glanced down at his in-car computer — the mounted screen every cruiser has — and looked up too late. And that version goes into the official collision report.
KayFour days later, his own lieutenant pulls the body-camera footage. And it doesn't match. From the moment the camera comes on, the file says, Olmstead is actively texting on his personal phone for roughly thirteen seconds, leading up to and at the moment of the collision. He's also on speakerphone with his wife. Investigators wrote there was no braking, and no attempt to avoid the crash.
PeteHere's a detail I didn't know. Kentucky's ban on texting while driving has an exception for police officers — but only for the essential functions of their official duties. He was texting another officer, and investigators concluded the exchange was not about official duties.
KayConfronted with the footage, Olmstead told investigators something remarkable. He said he remembered being taught, in the academy or in field training, that an officer in a collision shouldn't make statements of fault on camera.
PeteSo the Public Integrity Unit went and asked. All three of his field training officers, and the sergeant who ran training when he came through the academy. Every one of them said no such instruction exists. One sixteen-year veteran of the training bureau put it this way: it's against everything we preach.
KayThe formal complaint charged him under a department rule that requires officers to conduct themselves so as not to cast doubt on their integrity, honesty, judgment, or character. And in early May, the Disciplinary Review Board — five command staff, two Fraternal Order of Police representatives, and two citizen members — found the conduct improper, and recommended termination.
PeteChief Lawrence Weathers was scheduled to meet with Olmstead on May twentieth to make the final call. He never got the chance. Olmstead resigned first, effective May eighteenth. The chief closed the case with a one-line finding — and because he resigned, no final disciplinary action was ever imposed.
KayHe'd been on the force just under four years. And here's the part that almost slipped past everyone. On June fourth, the department posted the whole seventeen-page investigative file to the city's formal-complaints page — and a thirty-five minute compilation of the body-camera footage to YouTube. No announcement. No description. Just a case number. As of this weekend, that video had a hundred and seven views.
PeteNow put that next to what the system looks like when it runs all the way through. In Lexington, when a sworn officer or firefighter accepts discipline, the case goes to the Urban County Council for a public vote. That happened on June eighteenth, with three cases.
KayThe biggest one: Officer Caleb Croney, a ninety-day unpaid suspension. Working an off-duty detail in January, he entered a Waffle House that had just closed for the evening — after the security guard told him he'd have to wait for approval — and, in the chief's words, was rude and condescending with the guard — and did not present the professional image the department demands. His body camera was never turned on. The guard was wearing his own camera, though, and the guard's employer reported Croney to the department. Some of those details come from his personnel file, first reported by the Lexington Herald-Leader.
PeteIt was Croney's third formal complaint since he was hired in January of twenty twenty. The council had already voted on his discipline twice — a two-week suspension in twenty twenty-three, over a high-speed pursuit the wrong way down a one-way street, and a one-day suspension this February, after supervisors documented eight months of failures to communicate professionally and de-escalate.
KayThe other two cases that night were smaller. A second police officer accepted a written reprimand and retraining over unsatisfactory performance — his first formal complaint. And a fire captain accepted a written reprimand after his engine caused a collision on an emergency run this spring — his first documented offense in thirteen years with the department.
PeteAll three employees had accepted their punishment before the cases reached the council. All three passed unanimously, on voice votes, without discussion.
KaySo here's the shape of it. Accept your discipline, and the case ends in the council chamber, in public, on the record. Resign before the chief rules, and the case just closes. Nothing imposed. Nothing to vote on.
Pete[pause] The records still exist, though. That's the part worth holding onto. The investigative file, the video, the council record — all of it is public, and it's all in our show notes.
KayWhat to watch: discipline cases come to the council whenever an employee accepts a penalty — they're on the regular meeting agenda, and every meeting is archived. And the police department's formal-complaints page is where closed investigative files land. Sometimes, as we learned this week, without a word.
PeteThat's Town Branch for today. Every document we talked about — the seventeen-page investigative file, the body-camera video, and the council meeting record — is linked in the show notes.
KayTown Branch is produced by The Lexington Times. Our voices are synthetic, and our scripts are drafted with AI from Lexington Times reporting and the public record, then fact-checked before air. Read the sources for every episode at feeds dot lexington k y dot news slash podcast. [warm] We'll see you down the creek.
Town Branch is produced by The Lexington Times. The hosts are synthetic voices (ElevenLabs); episode scripts are drafted with Claude (Anthropic) from Lexington Times reporting and the public record, then fact-checked by the newsroom before publication. Every factual claim links to a source in the episode notes.