A Texas father says he changed where his children slept after discovering that an Amarillo police officer had allegedly been using law-enforcement databases to keep tabs on him for months.
Former Amarillo Police Officer Christian Slade Eder now faces 78 counts of tampering with a government record. Potter County court records list every charge under Texas Penal Code 37.10(c)(1) as a Class A misdemeanor.
The dates attached to those charges stretch from Feb. 25 through June 13, but they were far from evenly distributed. Three are dated in February, 41 in April, 20 in May, and 14 in June.
Behind those numbers was a father who says he followed predictable routines with his children — routines he later realized someone with access to license-plate and police databases could potentially map.
Someone Was Watching
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Speaking anonymously to KFDA in an interview syndicated by Gray News, the man said he regularly picked his children up from the same school and daycare and tended to drive the same routes.
He said he initially did not know Eder existed. According to his account, he had previously dated a female Amarillo police officer, and she later told him Eder had been appearing off duty at places where she worked.
His concerns escalated after he left his apartment for the gym around 1 a.m. and saw Eder’s marked patrol vehicle moving slowly through the parking lot behind his car. The female officer later told him Eder had mentioned seeing him leave at that hour.
Still unaware of the database activity, the father texted Eder and asked him to stop. He told KFDA that he would not have contacted Eder directly had he known how extensively his information had already been searched.
He eventually filed a complaint with the Amarillo Police Department.
The Search Trail
Amarillo police said in an Aug. 31 release that a department investigation determined Eder had improperly used police resources.
According to the criminal complaint as described by APD, Eder searched the man’s license plate 76 times through the Flock camera system between February and June. An audit of his TLOxp use found two searches for the man’s name on April 22.
APD then checked the reasons entered for those searches against its own records. The department said the man had no involvements matching those reasons, and Eder had no current or former cases or assignments involving the man or his vehicle.
The Potter County court docket supplies another view of the scale. Of the 78 charges filed against Eder, 23 carry an April 23 date alone. Another six are dated April 24 and seven April 25.
The counts continue into May and June, ending with two dated June 13.
Under Texas Penal Code Section 37.10, tampering with a governmental record can include knowingly making a false entry in a governmental record. Eder is specifically charged under subsection (c)(1), and the Potter County docket classifies all 78 counts as Class A misdemeanors.
Trust And Access
APD’s first public account of the case came in an Aug. 19 department release. Police said a citizen complaint led to an internal investigation that found Eder had used department resources inappropriately. He was terminated for policy violations, and a criminal investigation was opened and referred to the Potter County Attorney’s Office.
The Aug. 31 release provided the details that followed. APD said Eder’s termination was based on its administrative investigation, while the criminal allegations would proceed separately through the courts.
Chief Thomas Hover was unequivocal about what the department’s own investigation had found.
“I am deeply frustrated and disappointed by Officer Eder’s decision to use his access to criminal justice information for a personal purpose and then be dishonest in an attempt to conceal his actions,” Hover said in the department release.
Hover said he responded by adding supervisory review of officer searches, expanding the department’s ability to audit for potential misuse, reducing access to software and shortening data-retention periods.
“Integrity and credibility are fundamental to this profession and to the trust our community places in us,” Hover said.
For the father, those changes came after the alleged monitoring had already altered his family’s routines.
“I’ve had to change where my kids sleep in my house,” he told KFDA.
Seventy-Eight Counts
The criminal case is pending in Potter County Court at Law #1.
The court docket shows a single $4,500 surety bond marked as posted. It also lists the complaint, information, probable-cause affidavit, and warrant paperwork as filed on Aug. 31.
Eder had been fired by Amarillo police on July 17, weeks before the criminal case was filed. APD’s Aug. 31 release says the Potter County Attorney’s Office subsequently accepted the criminal complaint.
The father told KFDA that even after the firing, criminal charges, and policy changes, he still found himself looking over his shoulder.