A Bay Area firefighter who was arrested three years ago on suspicion of possessing child sexual abuse images may have faked his own death, the FBI said on Tuesday.
Charles Johnathen Harris, who worked for the Alameda County Fire Department, was arrested in March 2023, according to the FBI. Harris, who would be 46 years old now, allegedly drowned in a Suisun Bay boating accident weeks later on April 4. Officials said the circumstances of his death “warrant further scrutiny,” and they believe his death was possibly staged.
Harris is accused of uploading child sexual abuse images onto Kik, a social media platform, even when he was working at fire stations in the county, according to a March 2023 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. The investigation started after federal authorities received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the attorney’s office said…