Credit: Sanford Nowlin

The Bexar County District Attorney’s office last month dropped felony stalking charges against San Antonio’s colorful former fire union president Chris Steele, the Express-News reports.

Police arrested Steele — who led the union during its bare-knuckle 2018 contract fight — in June 2024. Authorities accused him of sending a series of harassing emails and text messages to four San Antonio Fire Department employees, as previously reported by the Current.

However, the DA’s office dropped the third-degree felony charges against Steele on Jan. 21 after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals amended how stalking offenses can be prosecuted, the daily reports.

“The ruling states that the conduct of an individual can be criminalized, but not the content of the communication, as it is protected under the First Amendment,” the DA’s office told the Express-News in a statement. “Because the current evidence in the case against Christopher Allen Steele did not amount to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, we could not move forward.”

In 2024, Steele allegedly sent harassing electronic messages to SAFD employees, including San Antonio Fire Chief Valerie Frausto, then an applicant for her current position, the daily reports.

Steele was accused of impersonating a private investigator named “Frank” in the messages and alleging Frausto engaged in misconduct and physically abused a former partner.

“Frank” told Frausto that he would release the dirt on her unless she withdrew her application for the fire chief job, according to the original case against Steele.

Investigators later linked the email account and phone number to Steele, according to the Express-News.

Steele made frequent headlines in 2018 as he led the fire union in a high-profile fight against then-City Manager Sheryl Sculley over a new labor contract.

In response to an impasse in contract talks, Steele led a successful public campaign to cap the city manager’s pay and tenure. Sculley stepped down shortly after the public vote.

Steele’s tenure as union president ended in 2021.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...