Privacy Concerns over Reality TV Series with CA Firefighters

On a recent evening, a woman in her 40s, after having too much to drink, lost her footing and collapsed on a downtown Sacramento sidewalk. Someone called 9-1-1.

Firefighters and paramedics pulled up to the woman just in time to see her fall again – this time landing hard on her face and stomach against the concrete. Paramedics surrounded her and assessed her injuries, realizing she had knocked herself out, and placed her on to a stretcher to be transported to the hospital.

A camera crew caught it all on film.

In November, the woman’s experience aired on national television, part of A&E’s reality show called “Live Rescue.” They also posted it to the A&E website and to YouTube, under the title, “Faceplant on the Sidewalk.”

Her face was blurred, but her clothing was not. Her voice was unchanged.

The Sacramento Fire Department has been inviting film crews to film them as they respond to calls in Sacramento since April. Department officials say they have received no negative feedback from the program, which they consider a tool for transparency and recruitment.

“One in six people in their lifetime will have contact with a firefighter,” said fire department spokesman Keith Wade, who is often featured on the show. “For the five that don’t, they still want to know what their fire department is doing.”

Many clips show firefighters using compassion to help people who are in medical distress or saving animals from house fires.

But others feature Sacramentans who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, homeless or impoverished. For that reason, “Cops” and shows like it have increasingly been criticized. Some say the shows make entertainment out of residents on their worst days, especially people of color and those living in poverty.

The clips sometimes go viral, getting more than 1 million views online from all over the world.

“These shows are exploitative,” said Kate Chatfield, of the Justice Collaborative, a criminal justice nonprofit. “Certainly when you call 9-1-1 in a moment of distress or have an emergency, you don’t expect a film crew to be coming to film you or your family member, child or loved one. It’s trauma porn.”

The show comes as the public and civil rights groups are raising more alarms about personal privacy in an age where much of what we do is under surveillance or data collection. Even as the fire department films its interactions with the public, and allows a private company to sell that product for entertainment, the home camera company Ring is collaborating with police departments around the country, including in Elk Grove, to share surveillance video.

The producers of the “Live Rescue” television show, Big Fish Entertainment, declined to be interviewed for this story. They also declined a request for journalists from The Sacramento Bee to observe them as they film around town, as they do every Monday evening. The company produces a host of reality shows, including VH1’s “Cartel Crew,” MTV’s “How Far is Tattoo Far?” and TLC’s “DC Cupcakes.”

“Live Rescue” is the latest of many reality TV shows to descend on Sacramento in the name of entertainment. Last year, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office permitted Burbank-based production company 44 Blue Productions into its jails to film inmates for a Netflix original series, “Jailbirds.”. A Sacramento Bee investigation found inmates were allowed to incriminate themselves without their attorneys present, and deputies closely watched as producers amped up the drama.

The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office signed up for a new reality show airing locally on Fox 40. And the Sacramento Police Department has appeared on the longest-running reality series on TV, “Cops.” The department has a standing contract with “Cops” producers Langley Productions. The contract, signed in 2008, lasts for 20 years and gives department officials final cut rights, meaning they can review and reject segments prior to being aired.

Meanwhile, some cities are questioning these relationships. Earlier this month, a proposal to allow the show film in Reno appeared on the City Council agenda, but the city manager pulled it off before the vote even happened due to public criticism and privacy concerns.

But in Sacramento, the decision to approve the show did not go before the City Council for consideration. Several members didn’t even know Sacramento was being featured on the show, they told The Bee.

Meanwhile, the city is getting ready to sign on for a third season, which again is not set to go to the council. Under Sacramento’s city code, items do not need council approval unless they cost the city more than $100,000, city spokesman Tim Swanson said.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he did not have an issue with that.

“Our city code allows the City Manager or his designee to make decisions on contracts of this size,” Steinberg said in a statement. “I have confidence in his judgment in deciding whether participation in a TV series is appropriate for the Sacramento Fire Department. Such shows educate people about the service that rescue and law enforcement professionals perform every day for residents of our city.”

How Sacramento got on the show

Last spring, a few months after took the helm as Sacramento’s fire chief, Gary Loesch got a call from New York. It was A&E producers interested in choosing Sacramento as one of eight cities for “Live Rescue.” The idea was a “Cops-style” reality show, but following firefighters and first responders instead of police.

“I sat down with their producers, who happened to be from the East Coast,” said Loesch, who moved from Philadelphia to take the job in Sacramento in October 2018. “Our language gelled.”

He saw it as an opportunity for recruitment, especially diversity recruitment, he said. He also considered an opportunity to educate the public on everything that firefighters do.

The chief then discussed the idea with Assistant City Manager Chris Conlin, and a city attorney’s office employee, he said. They all approved it, in addition to City Manager Howard Chan, Swanson said.

In April, the contract was signed, the department sent out a news release, and filming began.

“The comment made was, ‘Wow this was the toughest contract of the eight cities to get written’ because we were so concerned about our safeguards,” Loesch said.

One such safeguard gives Loesch a prior review for the footage. On Mondays, starting around 5:30 p.m., three film crews tag along with firefighters and paramedics as they respond to calls in a certain area of the city.

While they’re filming, Loesch gets to watch it all as it’s happening. If he has a concern, he can call the show and ask for something to be taken out. He can also call the show’s attorneys in New York and an official with the Sacramento city attorney’s office, who are both on standby on the so-called “live nights,” he said.

The attorneys for both the producers and the city are both careful not to violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in selecting what footage to air, Loesch said.

“We have an experienced team in our control room and studio and take great care when considering the footage that we broadcast,” Big Fish Entertainment, the show’s production company, said in a short emailed statement to The Bee.

On slow nights, the show airs segments that were previously recorded, which Loesch reviews ahead of time, as well.

On Jan. 27, Loesch went out with crews to be filmed, so another department official watched the live feed, Wade said.

In roughly ten months of filming, Loesch has only asked for something to be cut one time, when a firefighter and police officer responding to the scene happened to be relatives, and struck up some banter while on camera.

“I was worried about if somebody went, ‘Well why were they being so personal with each other?’ ” Loesch said. “I asked them to re-edit it, that part was just taken out and the package (aired).”

Loesch is not allowed to use the footage for discipline, under an agreement with the firefighters’ union, Loesch said. Firefighters can also opt out of filming if they want, as several have done.

The film has so far filmed in 21 of its 24 stations. Loesch did that on purpose, in order to showcase the city’s diversity, he said.

“It’s important to show the different communities,” Loesch said. “It’s transparency for the communities to see what we do and how we interact with the public. It doesn’t matter if you’re living in one of the expensive penthouses downtown or in the lower-income (areas). You’re treated the same way by the fire department.”

And then there are the regulars, like Wade, Capt. Stephen Mayer, Capt. Brian Luiz, and Capt. John Arroyo.

The show started requesting certain firefighters who were telegenic and well-spoken, Wade said. Sometimes those employees weren’t on duty on the “live nights,” but could choose to work the shift on overtime if they wanted.

In December, the city signed an addendum to the contract where the show agreed to pay the city $1,800 per episode as an “insignia fee.” That money goes toward the overtime to make sure no taxpayer money is used related to the show, Loesch said.

Chatfield raised issues with that process.

“That is manipulating emergency services for the benefit of a television show,” Chatfield said. “That is abhorrent.”

To fire department officials, there is a difference between the nature of the calls on shows like “Cops” and those that firefighters respond to, and thus a difference between the two types of shows.

“We are truly stewards of the public’s trust, and we take it very seriously,” said Wade, the department spokesman. “It’s actually a super humbling thing when you become a firefighter, when you first go into someone’s home, the amount of access that a person will give you because you have that badge and you’re a firefighter.”

Wade said police “are constantly striving to build that trust. We’re constantly just striving to maintain it.”

What about privacy?

During nine months of filming, Wade has witnessed a handful of times when the person being filmed says they do not want to be on camera.

When that happens when someone is in a public place, the crews will continue to film, but will not air the footage, Wade said. He’s seen that happen more than once, including one time when crews responded to a woman having a medical emergency in a Starbucks, he said.

“That footage will never see the light of day,” Wade said. “Our show, ‘Live Rescue,’ is not about showing people who don’t want to be filmed. That would do nothing for them or our agency.”

But the patients, often intoxicated or in extreme pain, do not always realize the crew is there or that the footage of their emergency will be aired as part of a national reality television show, sometimes just a few hours later.

The film crews have never asked the paramedics to change the way the firefighters are doing their jobs in order to make good TV, Loesch said.

But the cameras often arrive in the fire apparatus with the fire officials, which changes the power dynamic, said Carlton Jama Adams, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York.

“People tend to defer to authority, so its a set-up,” Adams said. “I don’t think the city should be in that business.”

In order to film in a private home, the show needs verbal permission, Wade said. To film in the patient compartment of the ambulance, the show needs a signed release. But to film in what is considered a public place – on the sidewalk, in a car on the street, on a bike trail or in a restaurant or business – no permission is needed.

In the case of the woman who faceplanted on the sidewalk, because it all happened in a public place, the show did not need permission to film or air it, Loesch said.

“I could walk up to a civilian and film her face,” Loesch said. “She is in public. So we have the right to film it. But again, we are doing this more as a documentary.”

The woman’s name was not aired, but the first names of other patients often are. Those names, paired with their voices, clothing and surroundings often mean the patients’ family, friends, coworkers and acquaintances can still recognize them, even if their faces are blurred.

In some cases that could be problematic – like a clip where a man riding a Jump scooter is hit by a car on his way home from a brewery in East Sacramento. When paramedics asked if he wanted to go to the hospital, he replied, “I’m trying not to piss off my wife.”

“Fuzzing out faces in a town the size of Reno just won’t work,” Stu Alderman told the Reno City Council earlier this month. “It’s been shown time and time again that fuzzed-out-face-people get identified, and with a plethora of identifiable landmarks in this valley, it would be hard not to be able to find somebody who is on that reality show.”

On top of the locals who might recognize the patient, there are hundreds of thousands of strangers. The show, considered a major hit, has more than 1 million viewers, one of the producers tweeted last month.

The clips are also posted online with a chyron that reads, “earlier in Sacramento.”

A clip that showed rescuers rescuing a black man from the river, titled, “Rescued and Arrested” has been viewed more than 130,000 times on YouTube. A different clip shows a man who was bitten by a homeless woman’s dog as he rode his bike past the many encampments along the American River. Another man stabbed the dog, who was later taken to be treated. Titled “Dog-Eat-Dog World,” it has been viewed nearly 73,000 times.

The more heartwarming clips sometimes get even more views.

A clip that showed the firefighters babysitting children after their mother was transported to the hospital has gotten nearly 1.6 million views, Loesch pointed out. A clip that showed first responders making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a diabetic woman has been viewed more than 276,000 times.

“A lot of people ... just think firefighters put fires out and that’s it,” Loesch said. “There’s so much more that we do. And you can now see it on this show.”

Adams said that national attention, even when positive and when the patient signs off, is not worth the downsides.

“The community will tell you whether the police in their precincts or the fire department in their precincts are efficient and caring,” Adams said. “You don’t need to put that on television.”

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