By Laura French
LUBBOCK, Texas — Police in Texas have arrested a man accused of impersonating several different first responders, stealing an AED and attempting to access a 13-year-old child’s medical records.
Jesse Taylor, 51, was arrested this week following multiple encounters with real first responders and healthcare personnel, including members of Lubbock Ambulance Service and staff at University Medical Center in Lubbock, according to KAMC.
Lubbock Ambulance Service personnel called the Lubbock Police Department in one instance after Taylor allegedly approached them at Covenant Medical Center and told paramedics he needed to inspect their AED. Paramedics reported that Taylor was wearing a U.S. Customs ID badge and carrying a firearm.
In another incident, Taylor allegedly displayed credentials indicating he worked for Wolfforth EMS and told a University Medical Center employee he needed an AED for a local school. The employee gave Taylor the AED, believing he was a member of the EMS agency.
Taylor is also accused of impersonating the Wolfforth EMS director and a Wolfforth and Houston firefighter. In an instance not included in court records but posted on the Wolfforth Fire & EMS Facebook page, Taylor is accused of telling University Medical Center staff that he was a Wolfforth firefighter and that the fire department had left their AED at the hospital, but staff did not give him an AED in this instance. He then allegedly asked for the codes to get into the ER, asked for the medical records of a 13-year-old patient and put a backboard from the hospital in his pickup truck. It is unclear if he left with the backboard.