SAN DIEGO — A freelance videographer has filed a police report accusing a San Diego firefighter of battery while trying to stop him from videoing an ambulance crew wheeling a patient out of the 2015 Comic Con.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the videographer, James “J.C.” Playford, has had hundreds of run-ins with law enforcement but seldom with fire department personnel.
“I’ve stood on street corners with my camera and had cops come up to me,” Playford said. “I’ve had my cameras stolen from me, my video deleted, I’ve been stripped naked and put in a white room in handcuffs ... these are the tactics your government uses.”
His latest video, posted on YouTube, has sparked a variety of reactions from professionals. The San Diego Fire Rescue fire chief called it “a training moment,” while a First Amendment advocate faulted Playford for not being sensitive to the patient’s distress, according to the report.
An attorney for a national press photographer’s organization said the firefighter was out of line.
Playford said he overheard a security guard’s radio broadcast that “talent” from “Game of Thrones” TV show was on the eighth floor of a nearby building, having breathing difficulty. He said he walked around the building to be where paramedics might show up, and an ambulance was there.
He began video recording an interview with a Comic Con fan, then saw medics wheeling a young woman out on a gurney, so he aimed his camera that way and walked toward them. On the video, a paramedic can be heard telling him he couldn’t take the patient’s picture because she is a minor, and Playford responds that he can video because she was in public.
He put a small spotlight on her as she covered her face with her hands and the medics rolled the gurney into the street toward the ambulance.
Playford is then heard using expletives while he tells a medic “not to ever touch him like that again.”
A San Diego firefighter tells Playford to go away and a fire captain can be seen stepping between them.