Police Cleared in Investigation of Troubled Delray Beach, FL, Firefighter

Six Delray Beach Police officers have been cleared after the internal investigation of an off-duty car crash in 2023 involving the firefighter who would later be terminated for driving a fire engine into the path of a Brightline train.

Delray Beach Fire Rescue driver-engineer David Wyatt drove a $1 million ladder truck around lowered gates and onto the tracks on Dec. 28 while responding to an emergency call, violently colliding with the Brightline traveling at nearly 80 mph. He and two fellow firefighters, along with 15 Brightline passengers, were injured. Wyatt was issued a noncriminal traffic citation earlier this year and fired in April for the crash.

The December crash led to numerous investigations and brought to light that multiple Delray Beach Fire Rescue employees, including Wyatt, drove fire engines and rescue trucks with suspended licenses at some point during their employment without supervisors’ knowledge. Wyatt’s license was active at the time of the Brightline crash.

The police department launched an internal review earlier this year of six officers involved with the investigation of a June 9, 2023, single-car crash, where Wyatt drove into a tree on West Atlantic Avenue and injured his head. That 2023 crash led to his license suspension.

Officers Roumy Florvil, Eljesa Musliu, Lois Pimentel and Nicolas Windsor in addition to Sgts. Oscar Leon and James Schmidt were reviewed for a possible “duty responsibility” violation, for an allegation that they failed to conduct a DUI investigation or to arrest Wyatt, the records obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday show. The allegation against the officers came from a complaint made by City Manager Terrence Moore after the Brightline crash.

All officers were “exonerated” after the review determined there was no probable cause to arrest Wyatt that night and that none of the officers showed Wyatt special treatment because of his job as a firefighter, or handled the scene any differently from other crashes, including other potential DUIs, the recently released records say.

No probable cause

Shortly before 10:30 p.m. June 9, 2023, Wyatt crashed into multiple traffic signs on West Atlantic Avenue near North Swinton Avenue, then hit a tree in the center median, city spokesperson Gina Carter said in a news release in January. He was taken to Bethesda Memorial Hospital for a cut on his head and later received a careless driving citation.

Wyatt, bleeding from his head, was outside of the car trying to get up from some bushes when officers got there, according to the internal investigation records. Further details of Wyatt’s injuries were redacted in the files.

Officer Nicholas Windsor, the police department’s DUI investigator, wrote he couldn’t establish probable cause that Wyatt was driving under the influence; no roadside sobriety tests were performed, no breathalyzer test was given to Wyatt and Windsor did not ask Wyatt to give a blood sample for testing.

Roadside sobriety tasks were not given to Wyatt at the scene because he was being treated by fire rescue, Windsor said in his statement during the internal investigation.

Because Wyatt was bleeding from his head, the priority at the scene was his safety and medical treatment, not the DUI investigation, according to the investigation records.

“During any type of accident involving injuries, medical treatment of the person involved is priority before a police officer’s investigation,” Baker wrote in her summary.

Windsor only saw Wyatt sitting down or lying on a stretcher, so he did not see any signs of impairment, Community Patrol Commander Captain Michael De Bree wrote in a May 28, 2025, memo reviewing the internal investigator’s conclusions. Wyatt’s speech was not slurred, no officers saw how he was driving before the crash, “nor could they place him in control of the vehicle or behind the wheel, which is a statutory requirement,” De Bree wrote.

Without probable cause, Windsor could not have forced or compelled a blood test, breath test or urine test, De Bree’s memo said.

Windsor didn’t interact with Wyatt until at the hospital, according to the investigation records. He told Wyatt he was conducting a DUI investigation, and Wyatt declined to answer questions, according to Windsor’s incident report. Body-worn camera video previously released by the city of Windsor interacting with Wyatt in the hospital have no audio and are blurred.

“When I returned from my patrol vehicle, Wyatt had been medically discharged and was no longer present at the hospital,” Windsor wrote in his incident report.

While Windsor saw that Wyatt’s eyes were red and his “speech was not always clear” in the body-worn camera video, Internal Affairs Sergeant Stephanie Baker wrote in her investigative summary that the dust from the airbags going off could have been the reason. Baker also asked the officers what other things could cause signs of impairment, to which they answered head injuries, diabetes, stroke, mental episodes and other conditions.

Windsor also contacted a DUI trainer and investigator at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for advice while he was still at the hospital, who “agreed with his assessment of the situation and also recommended not effecting an arrest under these circumstances,” De Bree wrote.

The facts and evidence gathered by Baker “unequivocally” supported that Windsor could not have arrested Wyatt and could have violated constitutional due process or been susceptible to a civil lawsuit if he had been “coerced” to, De Bree wrote in his memo.

Attorney Brennan Keeler, with the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association, said before Windsor gave his statement during the investigation that city officials were “Monday morning quarterbacking everything” stemming from the Brightline crash, the records show.

“We’re giving a statement … but at the same time we have to make it known, whoever listens to this, whoever pulls the transcript, that what’s happening to Officer Windsor and all of the other officers involved in this is just downright dirty, unfair, what have you,” Keeler said.

Moore did not give Baker a statement, according to the file.

Body-worn camera video

Another Delray Beach firefighter Jonathan De La Rionda was driving behind Wyatt at the time of the crash and was at the scene when officers arrived.

One officer’s body-worn camera video showed De La Rionda appear to say, “We’re fire rescue” when the officer approached him and Wyatt in the median. Not long after, the officer asked over radio for the DUI investigator to respond, the video showed.

Wyatt told the officer as he was sitting in the median, “I looked down for one second, sorry,” the video showed. After more than 10 minutes at the scene, the officer took a sworn statement from De La Rionda, who said Wyatt had been in the car by himself at the time of the crash.

A few minutes earlier, De La Rionda spoke to a different officer and said he saw the car “swerve at the last second,” the body-worn camera video showed.

” … He was behind the wheel and all that stuff? You saw him there?” the officer asked.

“Uh, I can’t confirm or deny that,” De La Rionda said.

“OK. First time I ever had that answer. Um, OK, so you just saw him swerve out of the way? Did you see any reason why he would swerve, or?” the officer asked.

“Not that I saw at the last second,” De La Rionda responded.

That same officer then asked Wyatt, who was blurred in the video, what happened.

“Hey buddy, you all right? So what happened here?” he asked Wyatt.

Wyatt said something about his brakes.

“So you were just going there, you slammed on the brakes and then just lost control or something or?” the officer asked.

“Yes sir,” Wyatt replied. “Hit the brake, came up on the curb, hit … It kinda messed me up a little bit.”

During the internal investigation, Baker asked De La Rionda if he recalled telling any of the officers that Wyatt worked for fire rescue. He said he didn’t remember, the records showed. Wyatt also said in his sworn statement to Baker that he did not recall telling any officers that he was a firefighter.

The city publicly released 11 clips of body-worn camera footage, and audio was muted by the officers in much of the footage as they spoke with each other, responding firefighters and De La Rionda.

Investigator Baker asked each of the officers about whether they are allowed to mute their cameras and why, the investigation records show. Many responded that they are allowed to when talking about “tactics.”

The police department’s policy says audio can be muted during “intelligence gathering” and “while transmitting and receiving information that is confidential or not related to the current investigation” when not in the presence of a victim, witness or suspect.

De Bree wrote in his memo that the muting “did not hinder this internal affairs investigation, the criminal investigation or affect my findings.”

Former chief interviewed

The police department is under the new leadership of Interim Chief Darrell K. Hunter after former Chief Russ Mager resigned in June.

Before he resigned, Mager was interviewed in February as part of the investigation. He was questioned about a call he made to Windsor on Jan. 7 about the 2023 crash, according to his statement, several days after Wyatt’s crash with the Brightline.

Mager said he called Windsor to ask about the 2023 crash “for informational purposes to get a better understanding of what occurred that evening,” according to the transcript of his statement. He had been notified of the crash and the fact that there would be no arrest the night it happened, the records showed.

Baker questioned whether Mager asked or told Windsor to “change anything about the case” when he called in January, to which Mager said he had not.

Windsor said in his sworn statement that it was unusual for the chief of police to call an officer directly and that Mager had questioned him “what I did versus how a DUI investigation’s conducted.” Windsor emailed Mager a copy of the crash investigation report and the DUI investigation report.

Mager had a meeting with city officials one day after the phone call with Windsor, and the internal investigation started one day after that.

“I don’t think he intentionally talked to me and tried to get information from me to be used against me, but halfway through this phone call my stomach turned and I started thinking, ‘Do I need a rep from my union because am I gonna face discipline?’ At no time did he ever say on that phone call that I would face discipline and be investigated for this incident,” Windsor said.

The Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association and the city have been in the midst of a months-long stalemate over a new contract.

One of four provisions that the city and union haven’t been able to agree on has been the city’s ask to require drug and alcohol testing any time a member of the union is in an accident, according to a transcript of a May 14 magistrate hearing with union and city attorneys.

The union has “continually protested” that provision, an attorney for the city said at the hearing.

Information from the Sun Sentinel archives was used in this report.