SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — State Senator Doris Turner has introduced a bill that would mandate body cams and dashboard cams for EMS workers.

SB1306 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 killing of Earl Moore Jr., a Springfield man who died after EMS workers responding to a call strapped him facedown on a gurney. An autopsy found that Moore died of compressional and positional asphyxia due to prone facedown restraint on a paramedic transpiration stretcher due to tightened straps across the back.

The service call was caught on the bodyworn cameras of Springfield Police Officers. In one of the videos released, an EMS worker is shown verbally berating Moore Jr.

“Sit up! I am not playing with you tonight. You’re gonna have to walk cause we ain’t carrying you. I’m serious we’re not in the mood for this dumb shit,” said EMS worker, Peggy Finley. 

Both workers have been charged with first-degree murder.

Without the camera footage provided by the Springfield Police Department, much of the incident would not have been recorded.

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.”

The bill has been referred to assignments.

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