Haines City, Fla. officer arrested after 717 Flock camera searches of estranged wife's car

On August 11, 2026, Haines City, Florida police officer Christopher Goodson, 31, was arrested on one count of offenses against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks, and electronic devices, and one count of official misconduct — both third-degree felonies. According to the arrest affidavit, Goodson entered his estranged wife's license plate into the department's Flock Safety camera database 717 times between September 1, 2024, and June 30, 2026, using his own department-issued laptop and cellphone under his employee credentials. Investigators found the vehicle was not connected to any criminal investigation that would have justified the searches; the affidavit says Goodson instead logged a variety of law-enforcement justifications — including drug/narcotics, assault and battery, and wanted-persons investigations — to enter them into the system. The pace of searches spiked sharply in parts of 2025, including 280 in September alone.

The investigation began only after Goodson went to the home of his supervisor, Lt. Carter, and disclosed the searches himself — after receiving a text message indicating that a reporter had contacted his estranged wife and was working on a story about his use of Flock to track her. According to the affidavit, Goodson told the lieutenant he had used the searches to keep track of his children's whereabouts when they were with his estranged wife; that explanation is Goodson's own account, as recorded in the affidavit, not an independently confirmed reason for the pattern. Haines City Police opened a criminal investigation, placed Goodson on paid administrative leave, and he has indicated he intends to resign. Police Chief Isaac Jackson said the department "fully supports all appropriate investigative measures" and that access to law-enforcement databases and information systems is for legitimate official purposes only.

The arrest is the latest in a recurring pattern of officers using standing access to Flock's license-plate database for personal reasons unrelated to any official duty, a pattern this archive tracks under the alpr-personal-misuse-by-officers episode. As in prior cases, the misuse went undetected by any internal control for years — Haines City police confirmed to reporters that the department had conducted no formal audits of Flock use before this case — and surfaced only because a journalist's outreach to Goodson's estranged wife forced him to disclose it himself.

Updates

2026-08-12 — Haines City police adopted new Flock audit safeguards [3]

Haines City Police announced new safeguards for Flock use in response to the Goodson case: mandatory quarterly audits of officer usage by platoon lieutenants, a requirement that every search be tied to a valid case or incident number, and annual retraining for officers with system access. The department confirmed it had conducted no formal audits of Flock use before the Goodson investigation.