Former Lebanon police officer arrested

Former Lebanon Police Officer Nicholas Reynolds has been arrested after an investigation into his conduct during a search for a wanted man.

The Boone County Sheriff’s Office arrested Reynolds, 27, Wednesday morning, and he booked out of the Boone County Jail shortly thereafter.

Reynolds is charged with official misconduct and obstruction of justice, level 6 felonies, and criminal mischief, a class B misdemeanor.

Reynolds was among LPD officers trying to serve an arrest warrant on Shane Andrew Roberts on May 3. Roberts was charged with two counts of battery after an April incident. Another man let police into Roberts’ home, and officers lifted Reynolds into an attic to look for him, according to a probable cause affidavit.

They didn’t find Roberts, and Reynolds told LPD Lt. Ryan Williamson that he may have knocked down some wires in the attic during his search, according to the affidavit.

But Roberts turned himself in later that day after seeing his security video of police in his house, police reported. Roberts complained that after someone went into the attic, his security system went dark, and he found five wires cut in the attic, according to the affidavit.

LPD Chief Chad Morgan immediately interviewed Reynolds and placed him on administrative leave, as is the policy when an internal investigation is begun, Morgan said Wednesday. Reynolds resigned from the department last week.

Morgan also asked the Boone County Sheriff’s Department to investigate Roberts’ claims. LPD reviewed information from Reynolds’ body camera and shared it with the BCSO.

BCSO Detective Jason Reynolds interviewed Nicholas ‘Nick’ Reynolds (the men are not related). Nick had been asked to clear the attic, which means making sure no one was in it, that day. He went up with his firearm and needed a flashlight to walk across rafters under a tangle of wires crossing the A-frame space in the dark, and he said he had to crawl through animal waste, Jason wrote in the affidavit.

Nick Reynolds said he became tangled in the wires on the way back and cut one with scissors, according to the affidavit.

Nick Reynolds is also accused of mislabeling the call on his body cam as “training,” rather than for “serving a warrant.” Video for warrant service is saved for three years, while video for training is saved for only a few days. Nick denied intentionally altering the body camera label.

Nick Reynolds was hired by LPD in June 2017 but then called by the U.S. Army Reserve to serve a year in the Middle East, which delayed completion of his LPD training and swearing in until October 2018. He took another year of leave from the department when he was again sent for a second tour in the Middle East and returned early this year.