48th District State Senator Doris Turner has introduced legislation that all EMS workers wear body cameras and all ambulances be outfitted with on-dash cameras.
Senate Bill 1306 would require “all EMS personnel to be equipped by their employers with body cameras that record the interactions of those personnel with patients, emergency responders, and members of the public during service calls.”
The bill comes in the wake of the death of 35 year old Earl Moore, Jr. of Springfield allegedly at the hands of two LifeStar EMS workers in December who strapped him face down in a gurney where he suffocated. Both EMS workers have been charged with first-degree murder.
Turner’s bill has a provision that would not allow the footage to be requested via the Freedom of Information Act unless being requested by “the person who made the service call or that person’s attorney or personal representative or a law enforcement official.”
EMT companies would have one year to come into compliance if the bill is approved.
The bill has been referred to assignments.