JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A former Jacksonville “Firefighter of the Year” was arrested Sunday and accused of sexual battery.
Vincent Harper, 49, entered the public eye in 2019 after a horrific attack in an ambulance when he was one of two firefighters stabbed by a patient in the ambulance. The community rallied around him and the other more seriously injured firefighter from the incident and he was selected American Legion “Firefighter of the Year” in 2020.
Last year, Harper filed a charge of discrimination against the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act.
“I was subjected to a hostile work environment due to my disability,” which he wrote he sustained following the stabbing, according to the complaint.
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He added that JFRD “instructed me to stop going to my doctor appointments because my Workers’ Compensation benefits were canceled.” The complaint claimed a Chief “told me a demeaning manner, ‘pull up your pants boy.’”
The complaint said Harper was eventually placed back on regular duty in December 2021.
Fast forward to June 2023, outside UF Health Hospital, the same hospital he was near when he was stabbed in 2019.
According to an arrest report, a female patient at the hospital “ran away from UF Health’s fifth-floor Pavilion Building without being discharged” and found a man “in a white vehicle with tinted window yelled at (her) to ‘come here.’” She originally declined an offer of a ride but “the male then told (her) that he would not touch (her)” and she got into his vehicle, according to an arrest report.
Then, inside the car, the report said they agreed to drive to the police memorial building, but “instead drove (her) to his residence and took (her) inside his bedroom.” Following that, the paragraph has been redacted by the police.
When the woman was eventually returned to the hospital she reported the sexual battery. Harper was identified in a photo spread and he was arrested this Sunday, the arrest report stated.
Harper is out on bond pending arraignment on Aug. 8.
JFRD said Harper is suspended without pay pending termination.