Gordon Graham here again with my regular opportunity to give you some thoughts on life and some of the things going on in our world – and specifically what is going on that might impact you who are associated with the fire service. Unless you have busied yourself with watching all the reruns of the CHiPs episodes, there is quite a bit of stuff going on that impact your profession.

Of course, the top story for the last week or so has been the Swine Flu – which we are no longer supposed to call it the “Swine Flu,” because calling it the Swine Flu could negatively impact pork sales – so we will not talk about this issue today – but the Swine Flu (or its successor) could end up being a really big deal with major consequences.

And we could also talk about the economy, and the demise of Chrysler as we know it.
That is too bad. I remember with fondness – the 71 Dodge Polara with the 440 – my first Patrol car! And I wish the good people at Chrysler the best, but a merger with Fiat (Fix It Again Tony) is filled with risk – and the consequences and unintended consequences of this alliance are well beyond the level of my understanding.

And I could ramble on about other economic issues, and about the wars, and the future of our Nation and how all of these issues combined will impact the fire service – but there is too much uncertainty regarding potential “consequences” in this arena for my comments to make any sense.

So instead, I will spend just a bit of time addressing an emerging issue – one that is causing a lot of grief in public safety operations – and one that needs your instant attention.

Last year, there was a fatal collision on a toll road. So, a brief recitation of the facts is necessary. There was some internal dispute with a wealthy Orange County family. And the dispute concluded with the father restricting his daughters’ use of her car. The daughter took her dad’s car – a high performance Porsche – up onto the toll road and crashed it at high speed into the toll booth – and she died – and it was a nasty crash.

And since you are in the business, you understand what happens next. The Fire Service shows up and does what they can do after the fact – and the CHP shows up and investigates the collision. And of course the Patrol took pictures (and maybe the fire personnel on scene did also) – and today we all use digital technology. Some of the pictures are pretty graphic – and who knows exactly what happened here, but some CHP employees distributed the pictures electronically outside of the Patrol and the pictures ended up on the Internet. The family of the decedent was angered and humiliated and a lawsuit was filed. While the lower court found in favor of the Patrol, the case has been appealed and we await the finding of the Appellate Court.

And you can spot some of the legal issues involved in the above brief scenario and regardless of how the Appellate Court rules, I don’t think it is proper to distribute these pictures (even if determined by the Court to be legal) in the manner in which they were – but that is just me and perhaps I am wrong on this. But the test I always use is the personal one. If this incident involved my family, would I appreciate being treated that way or would I have problems with that? I think I would be very angry.

None of this used to be a problem thirty years ago when we took “photographs” and the process of developing them and reproducing them and distributing them was very difficult – and expensive. Technology has changed a lot of things – and there are new issues that need to be addressed to avoid potential problems.

Along the same lines, USA Today (May 1) has a related story out of Arizona.

“University Medicine Center suspended four nurses and four patient care technicians for taking “potentially inappropriate” photos of a patient with a camera phone, officials said. Hospital rules prohibit the use of personal camera phones by staff inside the hospital. The hospital has notified the patient’s family and Tucson Police of the investigation.”

And you will recall similar stories out of UCLA and LASO when Paris Hilton was in jail and the tabloids were offering a ton of money for any pictures of her in custody. And along with the “civil” liability – some of these behaviors might generate “criminal” culpability.

Here is another recent story – but out of the UK – specifically the London Metropolitan Police Force.

The Met said, “PC Hayter, 49, stepped down after the force began an internal inquiry over the alleged comments posted on Facebook.”

A Met spokesman said, “Before his resignation the officer in question was under investigation by the Directorate of Professional Standards for allegedly posting inappropriate comments on a social networking website.”

“If any employee is identified as contributing material that is racist, homophobic, sexist, defamatory, offensive, illegal or deemed inappropriate they may be subject to disciplinary procedures.”

And you are aware of similar stories across our country along the same lines – postings on “social websites” by firefighters and cops – and the postings went beyond the employees “personal information” and involved department operations and photos of the employee in uniform or with department equipment or making comments that could be viewed as inappropriate.

The range of “potentially inappropriate” comments was pretty large from negative comments about the department or people inside the department or comments about government leaders (city council) to salacious stories about sex and other activities that embarrassed the organization.

Again, none of these things were even possible thirty years ago when the world communicated on paper or on telephone lines. The emergence of all the “electronic” and “digital” tools has been of great benefit in so many ways to public safety. But, there are also some huge consequences when these technologies are misused or not fully understood.

I am winding up this piece without a lot of answers – but certainly a lot of questions and some suggestions. Before you send someone an email – think it through and ask “what would happen if they posted this message on a public site?”

And before you post something on some social website – or before you digitally record a co-worker or supervisor – or before you take pictures on duty – please take the time to think.

Check your department policy – but I will caution you that some departments have not yet addressed this issue fully (or at all) and the mere fact that “there was not policy that said I could not do it” might be a defense that falls on deaf ears. Perhaps you could talk to a trusted coworker and get their opinion – but I will caution you that they could be as clueless as you are regarding the involved issue.

I am bringing all this to your attention in this piece, because there could be significant civil – and possible criminal – issues involved with the misuse of modern technology. The good news is that you have time to think before you act, so please think it through and consider all the consequences for your actions prior to taking the action. And none of this is “legal advice.” I think it falls into the area of “common sense.”

And please don’t forget that basic rule: If it happened to my family or me, how would I feel about it?

I look forward to visiting with you again next month. Until then, wash your hands a lot, cover your sneezes and coughs, stay away from sick people, and think prior to doing something that can have major negative ramifications.

Gordon Graham
Co-President, Lexipol

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under FD Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.