Banning first responders from taking and disseminating unauthorized pictures of victims would help offer closure to the family of Chicopee’s Amanda Plasse nearly a decade after her murder, Rep. Joseph Wagner told his colleagues on Tuesday.
Wagner’s bill (H 1917) would make it illegal for any police officer, firefighter or EMT to take a photo of a crime or accident victim without their consent, except in the normal course of their work.
He told the Judiciary Committee that Chicopee police officers took photos at the scene of Plasse’s murder in 2011 and then shared the graphic images with colleagues and other members of the community, causing “a good deal of grief” for her mother, Michelle Mathieson, and the rest of her family.
“(Mathieson) has grieved again and again and again, and I know that this anniversary, the 10th anniversary, may be more difficult than any of the others,” Wagner said. “She is looking f or closure, and this would help provide that.”
Other states have enacted similar laws.
A bill cleared the Massachusetts House in 2014 but died without action in the Senate, and Wagner said Tuesday that “a quiet, behind-the-scenes opposition has thwarted it since then.”
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