By Maddie Hanna
Monitor staff
CONCORD, NC — The photographer who had his camera seized at an accident scene by state troopers who said he was impersonating emergency personnel is now trying to take over the state troopers association’s trade name after the group let its nonprofit status lapse.
Brian Blackden filed with the secretary of state’s office last week for the New Hampshire Troopers Association trade name, which became available Feb. 15 once the organization, a union representing the state’s troopers, was administratively dissolved for failing to fill out renewal paperwork, said Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan.
Scanlan said the secretary of state’s office denied Blackden the name, saying he would need to first get consent from an organization with a valid - and similar-sounding - trade name, New Hampshire Trooper.
But that organization was registered by the troopers association, and “if the head of the snake is cut off, everything they have behind that is nonbinding,” Blackden said yesterday. He said he was prepared to fight the secretary of state’s office and the troopers association for ownership of the name, though he wouldn’t explain why he wanted it.
“Strategic legalese, I think that would be an appropriate term,” he said. He said he couldn’t explain what he meant by that yesterday but said that “in about a week, I will elaborate fully.”
Blackden is slated to go on trial in Concord District Court next month on charges of impersonating emergency personnel and obstructing government administration, which were filed after an investigation into his conduct at an August car accident along Interstate 93 in Canterbury.
At that accident, Blackden showed up in a fire coat and helmet marked with the word “photographer,” protective gear he says he often wears while taking pictures for 1st Responder Newspaper, a national publication he has been contributing to since 2009, as well as freelancing for local media outlets.
But the trooper who seized his camera, James Decker, found Blackden’s attire and vehicle - a converted ambulance with “1st Responder News” on the side - to be misleading.
He said Blackden told the police he was associated with the Penacook Rescue Squad, whose members said they hadn’t called him to the scene.
Blackden said he told Decker he often responds when the Penacook squad is called to accidents, but he said he also gave Decker a card identifying him as a correspondent with 1st Responder News.
In addition to contesting the charges against him, Blackden and the company that runs 1st Responder are now suing the state, the state police, Decker and state police Col. Robert Quinn, alleging the police violated Blackden’s First Amendment rights and seized his property without probable cause.
The attorney general’s office, which is representing the state and Decker, has filed a motion to dismiss. Blackden only recently moved to add Quinn to the lawsuit, meaning no lawyer has filed anything on his behalf.
As for filing for the rights to the troopers association’s name, Blackden notified the Monitor of his actions through a press release, describing himself as an “embattled photographer” who was being “persecuted” in court over the seizure of his camera.
Asked whether his interest in the association’s name was related to his other disputes with the state police, Blackden said, “Not directly.”
But the association’s president, Trooper Bill Graham, said he believed Blackden was motivated by those disputes.
“It all stems from that, I’m sure,” Graham said yesterday. “He has a longstanding feud with the state police.”
Still, “I don’t know where we come into it,” Graham said, referring to the troopers association. “We’ve never had an interaction with him.”
Graham said the association had accidentally let its nonprofit status lapse and filed with the secretary of state’s office for a revival once it learned Blackden was trying to take the group’s name - which happened when a member of the public in the secretary of state’s office overheard Blackden trying to file for the name and called a state police lieutenant, Graham said.
He said attorneys have told him the slip won’t change the association’s tax status and referred to the dispute over the name as “basically a non-issue.”
“Once you file the revival, it’s like it never lapsed,” Graham said.
Graham also said Blackden couldn’t win the rights to the association’s name, which was federally trademarked several years ago as the result of a lawsuit the troopers association filed against the state highway patrol association for registering web domain names similar to those used by the troopers association.
But Blackden said he’s received legal advice that suggests he could gain the name. He also disagreed with Graham’s position that the association hadn’t lapsed in status, instead arguing that the association has been operating illegally for the past six weeks.
And he said it was an employee with the secretary of state’s office, not a member of the public, who called the troopers to let them know he was filing for their name. He said he overheard an employee behind the office’s counter saying “in a loud voice that ‘we had trademark protections,’ meaning she was somehow involved with the troopers association.”
Blackden said that person then disappeared into an office, which is when he believes she made the call. He was sent into an office to discuss his request with Scanlan, he said, when someone from the troopers association arrived to register for the name.
“Part of my argument is when it is determined who made that phone call, obviously there’s going to be an investigation into abuse of office,” Blackden said.
Scanlan said his office received a call from the troopers association while Blackden was filing his request, but “I have no reason to believe that anyone in the office made the call” to the troopers, he said.
He said Blackden has 15 days from this past Friday to get consent from New Hampshire Trooper to file for the troopers association’s name. Until that period is up, Scanlan said, the office won’t take any action on the association’s status, which is listed as administratively dissolved.
Copyright 2011 ProQuest Information and Learning