JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A former Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office police officer, who pleaded guilty to two counts of offenses against computer users, was sentenced to 60 days in jail Monday.
Last week, Christopher Barr pleaded guilty to using protected databases while he was an employee to access and disseminate law enforcement information to unauthorized individuals whom Sheriff T.K Waters referred to as “criminals in our community.”
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During a press conference back in February, Waters said there was a “very strong possibility” that the criminals were connected to gang activity. However, the sheriff declined to give any more information, including the names of the people whom Barr is accused of informing, citing an ongoing investigation.
After his arrest in January, Barr resigned. He had been with JSO for four years.
“It doesn’t matter who it is. We won’t tolerate it. And when a member of this agency violates the law, that person will be held accountable,” Waters said in February.
News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackney is a retired JSO director of investigations and director. He said there’s a reason why law enforcement databases are restricted to law enforcement officers.
“There is so much information in there. Anybody who has ever been a victim of a crime or witness to a crime. All traffic-stop information. Anyone who was stopped and received a ticket. A field investigation report is written in there. There’s a lot of information that is accessible,” Hackney said.
According to a JSO arrest report, Barr became a focus after federal investigators said Barr may have searched and given information to a subject of their investigation in September of last year.
Investigators said they found cellphone data that showed a text thread conversation where the unknown subject of their investigation was asking about details of a police interaction in Jacksonville. In the thread, the subject was asking others to get information about when another person was contacted by police, according to the arrest report. One of the messages from the person in that thread indicated that he was going to reach out to Barr.
A screenshot from the subject’s phone showed the group message chat in the background and a minimized Facetime conversation that showed Officer Barr in his JSO uniform inside what appeared to be a JSO patrol vehicle.
After the reference to Officer Barr in the thread, messages were sent with names of other witnesses involved in the incident and, according to JSO, those names were only documented in the narrative of the JSO reports written for the case.
The phone number used was the same phone number Barr registered with JSO as his cellphone.
JSO later found that Barr searched the Agency Records Management System (ARMS), a restricted information system, and reviewed a report that had details sought by the subject in the message thread. JSO said 5 minutes after he searched the system, he replied to the text thread with names of other witnesses in the incident that could have only been obtained from the narrative of that report.
The second instance was on Jan. 25, in which Barr accessed the National Crime Information Center, NCIC, to check a motor vehicle tag number, and again, sent the info to targets of a criminal investigation, JSO said.
Barr’s work history shows JSO Internal Affairs has found three times that he violated the agency’s policy on secondary employment. Another time he was found to have violated the body-worn camera policy.
Following his arrest, Barr was released on bond.
During his sentencing Monday, Barr’s defense lawyer told the judge the unauthorized access was the result of an honest mistake, a statement that prosecutors also acknowledged.