Jacksonville Firefighter of the Year arrested in sexual assault case
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to omit a line that the fire department union president did not respond to an email for comment. The email that was sent was missing a letter and did not actually reach its destination.
Slashed by a patient in 2019 while coming to the aid of his wounded captain, honored in 2020 as Jacksonville Firefighter of the Year, then suing the city in a discrimination complaint, Vincent Anthony Harper now is accused of rape.
The 49-year-old was charged Sunday with sexual battery and released on $250,000 bond the next day, according to jail records.
His arrest report states the incident began about 2:45 p.m. on June 18 outside UF Health downtown after a patient ran away from the hospital’s fifth floor. The individual told police a man later identified as Harper yelled from a vehicle to “come here” and asked some questions including if the person needed a ride. The individual, whose sex was redacted throughout the report under the state’s Marsy’s Law for victim privacy, at first rejected but then got in.
The Sheriff’s Office’s Real Time Crime Center surveillance video confirmed the individual getting into the passenger seat of the vehicle, according to the report.
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The individual advised making a phone call using the driver’s cellphone and arranging to be picked up at the Police Memorial Building. The individual was instead taken to the man’s home where what happened next was redacted from the report.
Afterward the suspect asked, “Where do you want me to take you,” according to what police were told in the report. The response was to the Police Memorial Building, and that’s where the person was then dropped off nearby. Before leaving, the man said he would come back if the person still needed to be picked up.
Once the person’s contact arrived, the person was taken back to UF Health by a patrol officer, according to the arrest report. The individual reported a sexual battery at that time.
A sheriff’s officer also confirmed observing Harper’s vehicle about 4:15 p.m. and the individual being dropped off near the Police Memorial Building, the report said.
The individual described the suspect in detail with gray and black dreadlocks in a ponytail, a tattoo on his left arm and his residence as a brown “rusted house” with a metal divider that separates a street nearby.
An officer, whose name was redacted but appears to be the contact called by the person who fled the hospital, also provided Harper’s name, cellphone number and a screenshot of the time the officer was called on Harper’s cellphone — 2:51 p.m. June 18, according to the report. The officer said the patient explained in the phone conversation about fleeing UF Health and was advised to go back because the police would be on the lookout. But the patient refused to go back so was told to go to the Police Memorial Building.
On June 19 a redacted person in the report called the suspect to confront him about the allegations, to which the response was also blacked out.
Harper also was identified in a photospread on June 23, the report said. On June 30 he came in for an interview with investigators, but several graphs are blacked out after that per Florida statutes. An arrest warrant for Harper was eventually issued on July 14.
It’s unclear what the patient was being treated for or why police were involved with this individual, but the Times-Union has previously reported UF Health's fifth floor houses psychiatric and mental health facilities as well as cardiovascular, gastroenterology and nephrology centers.
The arrest report made no indications Harper knew the patient or why he was in the area at that time.
Phone and text message attempts by the Times-Union to reach Harper for comment were unsuccessful.
A fire department spokesman said he is suspended without pay pending termination. Court records show a public defender has been assigned as Harper’s attorney. Public Defender Charlie Cofer recently advised his office does not comment on pending cases based on rules regulating The Florida Bar.
Fire engineer Vincent Harper credited with saving captain’s life
Harper and Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department Capt. Latorrence Norris made local headlines in a grisly October 2019 attack by a man they were trying to help.
Harper was driving a rescue unit with Norris when they responded to a call to help a 38-year-old who was complaining of abdominal pain, fire officials said. The man was initially calm on the way to the hospital but then lunged at Norris in the back of the ambulance.
In the ensuing struggle, the patient took the box cutter Norris had in his pocket and began to cut him in the upper chest and abdominal area puncturing a lung, the fire chief said at the time.
Harper heard the fight in back and stopped. He threw himself “in harm’s way” to help his partner, suffering a deep gash on his right thigh before police arrived to fully subdue their attacker, the chief said.
The next year the department honored Harper with the 2019 Joseph F. Stichway Award as Firefighter of the Year. Fire Chief Keith Powers announced that Harper deserved the award after enduring one of the “most terrifying and ultimately challenging scenarios ever witnessed,” calling it a literal life-or-death struggle. He credited Harper for “preventing a fellow firefighter from perishing in an unpredictable random act of violence.”
Suing JFRD over discrimination
Last year after still coping with issues from the stabbing attack, Harper filed a discrimination complaint calling for a jury trial against the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.
In a lengthy narrative, he stated he was being hassled by the department over his mental health treatments that he was trying to continue in May 2021.
He said he was suddenly called in to meet with the department’s health and safety officer and three chiefs along with his captain, Norris, after a problem trying to make an appointment with his doctor. The health officer stated he was not following protocol to notify her of any workers’ compensation appointments.
She said he is going to appointments that no one knows about and they are expensive. She repeated asking several times who is paying for them. “I can tell you one that workman’s comp isn’t paying for them,” she said according to his complaint.
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Harper replied, “What do you mean it’s not workman’s comp? I got hurt on the job.”
She responded, “It hasn’t been workman’s comp since November. Your case was closed in November of 2020,” according to the document.
He said no one told him. He initially didn’t get a response until she said, “Your caseworker didn’t tell you?” He replied, “What caseworker?” Harper told them since going to his doctor appointments on duty was becoming such an issue, he would just take the time off as paid leave, his complaint said.
After some more dialogue, Harper’s complaint said one or two days later a chief called him in and told him not to report to his normal work location. He was instead to report to headquarters for light duty and that he would also need to take a mental and physical fit-for-duty test.
His complaint ends with him stating he is a qualified individual with a disability caused by the 2019 on-duty stabbing and was subjected to a hostile work environment as a result and in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Norris also had some problems after the stabbing. He was charged with driving under the influence a few months after the attack, but court records show the charge was dropped/abandoned and he instead pleaded no contest to reckless driving.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville Firefighter of the Year arrested and accused of rape
