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US: Tacoma-area man arrested for aiming at police plane

Aaron Huffman, 27, was arrested on a charge of first-degree unlawful discharge of a laser, after he allegedly aimed the laser at a Washington State Patrol plane on August 31 2014. The charge is a felony with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

The aircraft was on patrol at 2:35 am, at about 1700 to 2000 feet altitude, looking for impaired drivers, when it was illuminated by a laser beam. The pilot was able to use infrared imaging to see Huffman, standing outside of a mobile home. Officers on the ground said Huffman initially denied having a laser pointer, then he suggested the pilots mistook it for a flashlight. He said he was not aware the plane was a State Patrol aircraft.

Huffman lives with his grandparents. His grandfather told Q13 Fox News that Aaron was ““playing with a toy flashlight and that’s exactly what it was — it was a toy flashlight. Just one with, what do you call it, a laser beam? Well, now I can understand it since 9/11, but I’m 60 years old, I can understand it. I think ahead. He’s 20 something years old. He don’t think ahead.”

In the comments section of a News Tribute story about Huffman’s arrest, a commenter named Heather Huffman wrote “He has not done this before the laser wasn’t even $7 to buy had no warning label and he didn’t even know it would reach that far.”

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Photos from the aircraft, showing the laser aimed at the aircraft, and two infrared images of the mobile home park and Hoffman’s arrest.


From Q13 Fox News and the News Tribune