Cop Arrested First Day on the Job After Secret Snapchat Messages to High School Students

So somebody's alleging that you are soliciting nude images from a minor. Less than 24 hours

after being sworn in as deputy, Kai Cromer was suddenly confronted by investigators for committing one of the most unforgivable crimes. And unfortunately, the pieces of evidence against him are quite solid. Did he send you any pictures of himself? Yes. Anything nude? Yes. On March 4, 2024, 19-year-old Kai Stewart Cromer was officially sworn in as a deputy trainee with the Indian River County Sheriff's Office. Just hours after the ceremony, Cromer

reported to Vero Beach High School as a part of a routine orientation visit. But while he was on campus, a student recognized him. The student reported that Cromer had previously contacted her on Snapchat, allegedly asking her to send explicit images.

School staff immediately alerted the authorities, and an investigation began almost instantly as detectives quickly obtained a search warrant for Cromer's phone.

So I'm going to explain why I'm here. Before I do that, this is the subject of a criminal investigation, okay? So I'm gonna advise you of your grand rights. You have the right to remain silent. Do you understand these rights?

Okay.

So the reason I'm here is the sheriff's officer's complaint. And as a result of that complaint, the investigation was that you were still trying to solicit photos. Okay, so in response to that, a search warrant was issued. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read you that search warrant now.

Any search warrant we do for anything, we have to read the search warrant to the person we're serving it to, or the house, or whatever the case may be. So this is gonna be for you.

Standard procedure, we have to do this. So the name of the state of Florida to all in the same order. The sheriff of Indian River guys, lawful deputies, commissioner, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, any of the constituted agents, and any public, I'm gonna ask you now, are you willing to speak to me?

Right now we only have one side, so.

I mean, what is the outcome of this investigation? What are the avenues that you can take here?

Am I leaving here in handcuffs?

No, we're talking to you.

We have peace, we have probable cause for your phone. That's just for the phone. So this is crazy.

Yeah, we were not happy when we heard about that this morning. We were pulled in this morning and said, hey, something popped up. Somebody's alleging a certain situation. You guys need to look into it. So that's what we did. Right now, we only have one person that we spoke to.

And we never, as you know, we never arrest somebody on one person's story. So that's why I was.

If you get arrested, it's fine.

I mean.

If what?

You said you never arrest somebody on one side.

Right, we've only talked to one person. We didn't talk to you, so that's why we're here. We got the search warrant for the phone.

We're here to collect evidence, okay? Your phone, your messages are implicated in somebody talking to a 16 year old. Okay, so what do you do? Obviously, we have to look into that. We can't just ignore that. So we'd like to hear your side of the story if you're willing to speak to us, but

that's your decision. If you wanna talk to us and tell us what's going on, great. You wanna tell us, hey, how I'm saying it? I don't want to speak to you. That's your right as a citizen as well. I can't direct you what you need to do now. I can only ask you with your rights in mind if you're willing to speak to me.

And if I'm not willing to speak to you, how are you going to walk out of the door of my home?

We take your phone.

We're going to take your phone? That's it.

I know. This whole situation sucks. And I don't mean to be disrespectful to you, too. Absolutely.

I get it.

It's just, I mean, the way I was raised, have a lawyer, have a lawyer.

Okay.

Man, it's totally your fault.

I get it.

I don't want to be disrespectful to you guys.

I don't want to argue with you.

It's not being disrespectful. So somebody's alleging that you are soliciting nude images from a minor. That's what the allegations are. That's why we're here. We never want to talk to one of our own. It sucks. But it is what it is. Just like you go on the road, you've got to take every call as it comes. So we had a call that we had to investigate. What we have gathered so far gave us enough probable cause to get a search warrant for

your phone. It in no way at this point gave us probable cause to arrest you right now. Because like I said, we have one person's side of the story. Now we have your phone. If in your phone you have a bunch of kiddie porn, then we've got problems. So like Detective Scribner said, we read your rights.

It is completely up to you. It's not disrespectful in any way, but it's completely up to you. If you want to tell us anything, you have the right to stop at any point. If you don't want to talk to us and say, no, you know what, I want a lawyer, absolutely understand.

It's your call, man. I mean, I don't want to say that I want a lawyer

and then go to jail while you have my phone.

I'm going to tell you right now, you're not in handcuffs. You're not going to jail right now. OK? You are not going to jail right now. If you want to talk to a lawyer, 100% we understand. We're not here to make you. I'm telling you right now, if you say lawyer, I'm out the door. Okay?

There's gonna be some administrative stuff on the side.

Just because it's an investigation.

Just because it's an investigation. But right now, the only thing I'm here to do is collect your phone and if you would like to speak to me, great. If you don't, great.

Understood.

So, that's it.

Yeah. I'm not in any direction one way or the other. I've read through your rights. If you want a lawyer, 100% or change.

With your phone, I will say, I'm sure you've heard the part. It's court ordered that you're compelled to allow access to the phone by a biometrics, meaning if it's a face recognition or a-

I have no problem with that. Yeah.

It's just the interviewing. No, I get it. Do you have a password for your phone?

Yes, would you like to take it down?

Yes.

Holy crap.

It's an iPhone?

Yes, ma'am.

It's a long password.

Like I said, with the accounts, I don't have my phone, so I can't do anything about that. But I'll be home soon and whatnot, so.

Alright. Bye.

Thank you.

I would have stepped out, but my work phone has case information on it. Not necessarily yours but a lot.

A good way to do business.

Alright, thanks sir.

Do you have any questions for us?

Do you have my number?

I don't think so, I'm sorry.

Sir, do you have your cell phone on you?

During a forensic review of Cromer's device, detectives reported finding digital evidence indicating inappropriate communication with minors. The findings gave investigators probable cause to move forward with an arrest, as well as contact and interview the victims of Cromer's

misconducts. According to the information found on his device, the first was the 16-year-old victim who found the suspect in the school and reported.

A guy that was asking me to send him.

Do you have water in there now?

You look nervous.

Yeah.

You do?

You're not in trouble.

You know that, right?

OK.

What's your date of birth? You're not in trouble. You know that, right? Okay. What's your date of birth?

You're not in trouble, okay. So, I get this is hard to talk about in front of two complete strangers. So, we're gonna take this nice and slow here real fast. Now, you said a guy was sending you messages

asking you for names.

Yes.

So, what platform was he messaging you?

Snapchat.

Okay.

And what is your name on Snapchat? And what was the name of the person sending you messages?

Kai Kroemer.

Is that what it comes up on Snapchat?

Yes.

So just to give an idea of what we do, we do this every day, all day. So we're detectives with Special Victims Unit. So we investigate anything that has to do with basically a person, like your actual physical, whether it's images, whether it's threatening, extortion, that kind of thing,

whether it's actually pornography, unfortunately, battery. So we see it all. He's done a lot longer than I have, but even my short time, it's, I mean, I don't think there's anything that surprises me at this point.

So what's uncomfortable to you is kind of like second nature to us. So I don't know. I'm sure it's not going to help you relax. But again, you didn't do anything wrong. Even if you sent him something that you didn't want to say anything and he doesn't matter what happened.

Result. OK.

So when did he start contacting you?

So I knew him from I think it was two years ago, probably now. Um, I worked- Um, I was- Um, we didn't really speak, but that's how we met. Um, but he added me through Quick Add on snapchat so pretty much if you don't know what that is it's pretty much just you can click the ad button and it pulls up anybody that's a

mutual friend so maybe you have someone that he has on snapchat so it pulls your name up and you can add anyone there. Okay. So he added me off of that. And that was two years ago you said? No, no, no. I knew him from two years ago, sorry. This was, I want to say, maybe a month ago.

Okay.

Um, he added me off of that. We were snapping back and forth. Um, he didn't really do anything, like, when we started talking. Um, I didn't know that he was over the age of 18, just because I knew him from before, so I didn't think anything of it.

And then he started like asking me, so he first said I was really pretty, he said thank you, and then he then asked me if I could take off my leggings for him and show him. And I told him no. I told him I had to leave the house soon so I couldn't. And then he asked me just to keep the leggings on and show him. And I said no, I have to leave. I didn't really know what else to say at that point.

And then I thought he would stop because I said no. So I just left it alone. Usually, I mean, I have a long blocked list of guys that have done that to me, so I usually I'll just block them. But since I knew him from before, I didn't really think he would go very far. A couple days later, he snapped me when he was in his uniform. I asked him if he was a cop, and he said yes. I asked him how old he was.

He said, I honestly don't think he told me how old he was, but he said too old. And I said, I think his name is Milo Thornton. He took a picture of what he said. It pretty much said that he can keep a secret.

Do you have saved screenshots of that?

It's not screenshots on Snapchat. You can do stickers. So I have stickers of everything that he said to me. Okay. There's eight or nine pictures of everything.

Can I see those?

Yeah.

Now, you said he was kind of... I'm sorry.

No, no, no. You're fine.

You said he was kind of being flirtatious, saying, Oh my God, you're so pretty. And did he give the impression that he wanted to get into a relationship with you?

Not a... I can get you a better one. Not into a relationship. That's the one that I was just talking about. You can take it. Not into a relationship. He asked me if I could sneak out of my house. I told him no. Did he ask you why?

Like, how did that conversation go?

I'm pretty sure he asked how he was able to see me, and I told him he can't, because my parents are pretty strict about guys, with good reason, but parents are pretty strict about guys, with good reason. But they're pretty strict, so I told him it wouldn't be possible.

If I just scroll over, will it show me the others?

No, you have to click back in here. And then you can just click on them, and you can zoom in if you'd like.

And that conversation pretty much ended there Did you know I'm assuming because it's kind of going back and forth what was your kind of Burbage to him was it kind of on the same lines like yeah I'm kind of into you too, but now my parents are strict and no I'm not gonna stick out my house for you

That kind of thing. Um I wasn't the only thing I think he could have taken the wrong way was that I said his smile was pretty But other than that no I didn't really feed into it, especially after I knew he was older.

Okay. And you only knew that he was older when he posted the pic of himself in the uniform?

Yeah.

Okay.

Talking to him, how, when did you, so after you said, was it before or after you sent the picture out to bay and said that you guys were discussing your age?

I wanna say it was before because I didn't know, I didn't ask him about his age yet. He had stabbed me. He asked how I was doing because we haven't talked since a few years ago.

Okay.

Fine.

I honestly don't remember how my age got brought up, but I told him I was 16 Okay, so today I saw him at the metal detectors when I was going in. He was here Yes, okay, and I had a little bit of a freakout not sure why I just really really bothered me to see him And I was standing with my friend because she drives me to school

and I told her that that was him. And I was kind of freaking out because I don't have a first period. So I went to my second period, was kind of acting a little strange. I was not feeling well.

I went to the bathroom, I saw him again, had to walk past him, kept my head down. And then I went to the bathroom, I saw him again, had to walk past him, kept my head down. And then I went to my third period and I was talking to my mom because she makes it really easy to talk to her. So I was talking to her and I showed her one of the pictures and she said that she was a mandatory reporter so she reported it. Okay. She called me out and I talked to her and the sheriff that was in there. And then he said that he had to call one of my friends.

I told him I was probably best to call my friend because it's really difficult to get a hold of. Okay. What does she do here? Is she like a counselor or is she like a guidance? I would say she's some sort of administrator. It's really difficult to get a hold of. Okay. Here. Uh...

Is she like a counselor or...

I would say she's some sort of administrator.

Administrator, okay.

Okay.

When you say, because I saw the ones that says, I want to see the other side, things like that.

I'm assuming your butt.

Yeah.

Okay.

It was me in a bathing suit.

Did he specifically ask for, like how did he ask for, you say he asked for, what was the specific verb that you used?

Take that off or take off your pants or something of the sort of like take off your clothes.

So he would say take off your clothes?

Or yeah, you should take that off.

And did he specifically ever say a body part? Like, was there any very specific language of like, send me a photo of X, Y, or Z?

It was usually, he wanted to see my butt. And then sometimes he'd ask questions.

Okay. When you say he asked questions, how did he work it? And you're not gonna, I know it yes, how did he work and you're not? But I know it's hard to talk about, but you're not gonna embarrass us, but we gotta be very specific when we're talking language.

Um, he would say, I don't know his exact verbiage, but he would say she'll be

sure. Okay, I think that he didn't use any other word. I don't think another victim who told detectives she met Cromer about a year earlier at her workplace also explained her experience with the suspect to investigators.

Yeah, so how did you meet him?

So just.

OK, and how long ago did you meet him? Oh, ballpark years little over a year. Do you know how old he is?

Yes.

How old is he?

He's 20 this April.

Okay.

Yes, you do know that.

Does he know how old you are?

Yes.

How does he know that?

Because I told him.

How old were you? So you would have been at what age when you and he knew at that time yeah okay so he has absolutely 100% knowledge of your age yes okay and did you you became friends on snapchat just because you know him okay did you ever have a relationship with him did you ever consider yourself dating I wouldn't we

never no not like a serious like not like an actual

relationship yeah yeah yeah okay and how are the conversations because like I said we we did we have his phone we did a search war on his phone so we do have a lot of the content I got a search warrant through Snapchat. That should be coming. But a lot of the content that he has saved to his phone. I want to know what you actually sent him to your knowledge.

Yeah, so just like, yeah, probably everything that you saw was just like true. Just not, things that I'm not really proud of. You know, he was, he's older. I thought I really, really liked him. I don't want to victimize myself or be dramatic in any way

because that's not how someone should go about this, you know. But I was like manipulated and he would like say things and stuff and not even manipulate it like, oh I like you so much like do it Please just like in the sense that like And I know my dad trusts me and everything so it's not like the worst thing But I just like I did do things I'm not proud of and it's and I am old enough

I am older and it's really like I don't really feel like I like went through that I learned what I had to learn it was a lesson I don't feel like it's something that they have to know right like did he

send you any pictures of himself yes anything nude yes okay are they still on

phone no I never have had them like it was on snapchat so I also I never say that I guess he could have saved something or let's get a picture of it cuz I know he has two phones. I know that and I guess he uses it to do that.

How do you know that? Other than you're very intelligent, but how do you know that?

Know what?

That he uses another phone to image the phone.

Well I know he has another phone because of like my experience with him and just like some stuff that would happen and like if I blocked him or whatever he would use his other phone to text me, stuff like that. And then I kind of just connected the dots from there. Like, um, just, yeah. And if, especially this, if he still has them, it's probably because of the other phone. Cause with Snapchat, it tells you when people screenshot or save. And I never got that, obviously hence why it went on for a little bit, but not even a little bit, just hence why it went on in the first

place. Right. And I never was comfortable, I never wanted to do it, and he was just pretty adamant like, oh, just manipulative things that I totally fell for. But yeah, I haven't to anybody else, and it was just kind of, him in my life was just like a complete, like I was just a different person

when I would come in contact with him. Different person.

Because your mom would give you, and the way you speak right now, you pretty much, you're the one that's gonna make your own decisions. And the fact that it sounds like he kind of swayed you on things that you normally wouldn't do is what you're trying to refer to.

Yes, yes, yes.

You some jerk?

Detective, you have no idea the things he would say. Not only were they like, some things were like just gross and just like, you know, and I played into that a little bit. But like, in terms of the just, the rudeness and the meanness, like it's inhumane. You don't say those things to people.

You know? Can you speak like this to you? Can you give me an example?

Because I know where my, like whatever, but like the the root things. It's just not how you treat human beings. I'm trying to think um just like, like if I'd say something like say how I feel or whatever, just things like I really don't care. Like get away. Like stop talking to me. Like what do you not understand about that? Oh yeah, just like things like that it's just like it's cold uh yeah just something's not right it's not right so and how soon did that

start after you guys started like messaging back and forth and photos and all that well um was he

like that before no he wasn't both victims confirmed Cromer repeatedly asked for explicit photos of them, but unfortunately that wasn't all. Investigators identified at least four minor victims connected to the case. Authorities also said additional victims were possible as they continued reviewing evidence. On March 5th, 2024, less than a day after being sworn in, Cromer was arrested.

Hey, bud.

Good, how are you?

Like I said, this is just the stuff for all the, everything that you turned in yesterday. Right, right there with a signature for me,

if you can sign.

Where was that at?

Right here, that's a signature.

It's yours.

How are you? Good.

Did you want it for your wrist?

Yeah, I got it.

Maybe you want to get on some slides or something?

I'm good.

You don't have anything on you right now?

No, nothing at all. Separate your feet for me.

Just feel like something.

Usually it's when I get kicked off.

He has an attorney, Andy Metcalf, on him.

I just gave him a call. Yeah, you can leave a message for tomorrow or he might leave you a contact.

Alright.

And Andy can go to first appearance and enter whatever on his behalf and handle that.

Usually if you have a lawyer, they usually kind of put you in front, but it's a carelessness when you get seen. Like I said, it's back to said, 85 to it. Uh-huh. I got it. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. All right.

Wait a moment.

If you're all right, it's not her.

Yeah.

Just wait on the head of that car.

Kroeber was booked into the county jail later that evening. He posted a $15,000 bond and was released a few hours later. He was also immediately terminated from the sheriff's office. However, in October of 2025, prosecutors reached a plea agreement. Cromer pleaded guilty to three amended counts of possession of obscenity harmful to minors. The court sentenced him to eight months in county jail,

three years of sex offender probation, and permanent felony conviction. three years of sex offender probation, and permanent felony conviction. However, under the plea agreement, Cromer is not required to register as a sex offender.