US: Teen arrested for "shooing" helicopter with laser pointer
Fri, Dec 18 2009 Filed in: Arrests | Aircraft incidents
An 18-year-old tried to “shoo away” a Sheriff’s Office helicopter with a 6-inch-long “high powered” laser pointer, because the noise was keeping him awake. Deputies soon arrived at Beau Richard Wallace’s home in Palm Harbor, Florida. They arrested him on a felony charge of misusing a laser lighting device, which is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Wallace said he was “just being stupid” and that he had owned the laser pointer for only a week before the Dec. 17 incident.
From the St. Petersburg Times
Wallace said he was “just being stupid” and that he had owned the laser pointer for only a week before the Dec. 17 incident.
From the St. Petersburg Times
US: Florida man aims laser at deputies, is shot dead
Fri, Feb 04 2005 Filed in: Other incidents | Death
A Pinellas County Sheriff's deputy shot and killed a man who had been pointing a laser at a group of deputies early this morning [Feb. 4 2005], WTSP-10 News reports. Thomas Setzer, 24, was said to have aimed the laser from the second floor of an apartment building. The shooting occurred as the deputies went to the apartment to investigate.
Concerned they were being targeted by a laser-sighted weapon, a deputy trained a spotlight on a second-floor window at the adjacent Boardwalk Apartments, and the laser stopped. Then the beam appeared again, this time focusing on the deputies' bodies and tracking them as they walked.
Deputies drove to the apartments to investigate. Within minutes, the man they say pointed the laser was dead.
Read More...
Concerned they were being targeted by a laser-sighted weapon, a deputy trained a spotlight on a second-floor window at the adjacent Boardwalk Apartments, and the laser stopped. Then the beam appeared again, this time focusing on the deputies' bodies and tracking them as they walked.
Deputies drove to the apartments to investigate. Within minutes, the man they say pointed the laser was dead.
Read More...
US: Sheriffs raid home to seach for laser pointers
Tue, Aug 12 2008 Filed in: Aircraft incidents | Arrests
Contending with a nationwide surge in the number of laser incidents disrupting the piloted skies, the Sheriff's Office and the FBI came down hard on 22-year-old Thomas Kiefer and his family. After identifying the house on Dillman Road west of West Palm Beach, they arrived with a search warrant and assault rifles that the family says were pointed at them as agents tossed through drawers and closets in search of lasers. They confiscated 10 lasers.
Kiefer, 22, spent the night in jail and faces a third-degree felony.
Kiefer and his parents, Thomas and Kathleen, were taken by surprise. They said they weren't given a chance to read the search warrant and were forced outside as agents searched the house, threw their belongings on the floor and kicked in the door to Kiefer's room, while his mother stood out back shouting, "Don't break the door down, I have the key." Read More...
Kiefer, 22, spent the night in jail and faces a third-degree felony.
Kiefer and his parents, Thomas and Kathleen, were taken by surprise. They said they weren't given a chance to read the search warrant and were forced outside as agents searched the house, threw their belongings on the floor and kicked in the door to Kiefer's room, while his mother stood out back shouting, "Don't break the door down, I have the key." Read More...