A police officer in Lexington has been put on leave without pay for a week because he crashed his department car five times in two years.
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council decided on November 14 to suspend John Gibbons and take away his right to drive his car for six months because of the three most recent accidents.
The Herald-Leader got papers about Gibbons’s failure to report at least one of the five accidents to his boss through an open records request. All five accidents were minor, and no one was hurt.
According to the charges, Gibbons hit a police car on April 5, 2023, while trying to parallel park on Nicholasville Road in a police “wagon” that is used to take people to jail.
According to a summary of the investigation by the department’s Public Integrity Unit, Gibbons “drove too close,” which caused the rear taillight of the other police car to hit the passenger side of the wagon.
After about two months, Gibbons and another officer were parking off of Executive Drive when the other officer began to back up to leave for a call that had been sent out. An incident report says that Gibbons started to back up too, but “did not see the other cruiser in his blind spot” and hit the other officer’s muffler, which caused Gibbons’ tire to go flat.
Then, on January 24, 2019, Gibbons hit a car that wasn’t occupied while backing into a parking spot. A summary of the event says that he told police that it “was heavily icy that night.”
Because of the accidents, Gibbons got new driving lessons in February. Police records show that he was also given a written warning and had his take-home vehicle rights taken away for two weeks. He said that he was to blame for all three accidents.
An incident summary says that on July 27, Gibbons was again on the phone when he backed into a parking place and hit a pole, doing some minor damage to the car.
Gibbons also hit a wall in a police car on August 31, which led to two flat tires. Records show that Gibbons called a tow company to get the car, but he forgot to tell his bosses about the accident. When Gibbons brought the car back to the city, engineers found the damage.
Records show that Gibbons was supposed to sign out of the pool car but forgot to do so, which is against the rules.
Department records show that Gibbons’ one-week ban ended on December 1.
