Car-crash photographer guilty

Concord photographer Brian Blackden was found guilty yesterday of impersonating emergency personnel for showing up at a fatal car accident in Canterbury last year dressed in protective fire gear, misleading a state police trooper.

Concord District Court Judge Gerard Boyle handed down his verdict at the end of Blackden's trial yesterday afternoon, also finding the photographer guilty of displaying red emergency lights without authorization on the ambulance he brought to the Interstate 93 crash scene Aug. 25. He fined Blackden $1,000 for each of the two crimes and ordered him to pay a $240 penalty assessment but didn't sentence him to jail time.

Blackden's attorney, Penny Dean, said he will appeal the impersonating emergency personnel conviction to the Merrimack County Superior Court. Blackden is also suing the state police for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights by seizing his camera at the accident scene.

In ruling on the case, Boyle remarked on the length of Blackden's trial, which ran for several days in April and was continued to yesterday afternoon. The case involved misdemeanor and violation-level offenses that would normally take no more than two hours to resolve, Boyle said.

He said he was aware of the lawsuit Blackden filed against the state police in federal court, and "I frankly don't know whether this case would ever be brought if that case hadn't been filed," Boyle said.

At the same time, he said, "This is not a frivolous action brought by the state."

According to Trooper James Decker, Blackden - who worked as an emergency medical technician and firefighter in the 1980s - identified himself as being with the Penacook Rescue Squad and said he'd been toned to the early morning accident by the squad. He'd parked his ambulance behind a row of fire trucks and emergency vehicles along I-93, and he had its red emergency lights flashing.

Blackden, a freelance photographer who regularly took pictures at local accident scenes involving Penacook Rescue, said he was wearing the fire gear for protection and never identified himself as a member of the rescue squad or as an emergency responder.

Dean said he didn't have his name and town emblazoned on his gear like many local firefighters, and "if his goal is to trick these people, he's surely not that stupid," she said.

But based on what Blackden was wearing at the scene and Decker's testimony as to how Blackden represented himself, Boyle said there was sufficient evidence to find Blackden guilty of the impersonation charge, a misdemeanor.

Boyle also found Blackden guilty of displaying red emergency lights without authorization, a violation-level offense.

Blackden, who also owns a pepper spray supply shop on North State Street, said he bought the ambulance to use as a showroom for his pepper spray products and only uses the lights when he puts it on display in parades. He said he turned them on at the accident scene, however, to caution drivers on I-93.

Besides those charges, Boyle dismissed two different charges brought by the state police: one for obstruction of government administration and the other for unlawful entry to a controlled rescue scene.

While Boyle said he believed Blackden's presence at the scene had interfered with Decker's ability to do his job, he said the state hadn't properly pleaded the misdemeanor charge. Blackden had to act purposely to be convicted of the crime, but that language was missing from the complaint.

And while Boyle said there was "no doubt in my mind" that Blackden had entered the accident scene without permission from someone in charge, he said he couldn't find Blackden guilty of the violation-level offense because the state hadn't given him a copy of the uniform fire code Blackden was accused of violating.