Persons driving by homes near Wilmington, Ohio have been aiming green laser beams at the houses. There were three reports filed with police, and additional unofficial reports made on social media.

Homeowners are concerned about the safety hazards of the lasers, which are of unknown power and intensity. The Clinton County Sheriff's office is worried as well about the lasers possibly being aimed at other cars or at aircraft.

Enlargement of a video, taken by a homeowner, showing two lasers being aimed out the side windows of a car.

From Fox19

Tags: US, Ohio, Harassment, Car, Driver, Color: Green, Unknown perpetrator

An Ohio teenager injured his retina after deliberately looking for a few seconds into a laser pointer designed for playing with pets, according to a medical journal report.

The unnamed teen initially had vision loss for several minutes due to flashblindness (looking into a bright light).

Five months later the boy went to an Ohio State University ophthalmologist due to continually-blurred vision with partial loss of vision in his right eye. Vision tests showed his left eye vision was normal. But if looking at text with his right eye, a single letter would be missing. When using only his left eye, or when using both eyes together, he could see the missing letter.

A standard clinical exam showed lesions in both eyes that were diagnosed as lesions in the macula, the area within the retina that we use for our central vision. The macula has the most and densest packing of light-detecting cones.

Tests done six months after the first doctor visit showed "marked improvement" in both eyes.

Further analysis was done with a custom-built adaptive optics optical coherence tomography scanning laser ophthalmoscope that is only one of five in the United States. This gives a very high-resolution view of the retina — much better than the human eye or more conventional retinal imaging techniques.

The AO-OCT-SLO image taken 11 months after the laser exposure showed damage to some of the macular cones. The ophthalmologist said "There's just nothing left there. The affected areas are devoid of cones."

AO-OCT-SLO image of lesions A through E with small sites of cone loss (B, C, and D) in the teen's right eye. Each white dot is an individual cone cell, which is about 1/20th the width of a human hair. There are around six to seven million cones in the retina. Lesions A and E are about as wide as two hairs; lesions B-D are less than the width of a hair. Image source: Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. / Ohio State University

Another AO-OCT-SLO image taken nine months later showed the lesions decreased in size, from 3.7% to 23.8% compared to the first image. "However, the longer-term prognosis is likely permanent scarring," according to the report.

Original report in Retinal Cases & Brief Reports, summarized in an Ohio State News story. Other stories about this appeared in Science Alert and Interesting Engineering,

Tags: US, Ohio, Eye injury - self-inflicted, Age: 10-19, Scientific study or journal

A 15-year-old boy shot and killed a friend as they were playing video games on January 26 2020 in Pataskala, Ohio.

Noah Bigham aimed a 9mm handgun which had a built-in laser pointer sight at his lifelong friend Hunter Cooper's eyes, to distract him during a game. Bigham pulled the trigger, firing the gun and killing his 15-year-old Cooper.

He was arrested and was charged as a juvenile with reckless homicide, a third-degree felony if committed by an adult.

Bigham's attorney called the killing "unintentional": "“The home, unfortunately, had complete access to handguns. It is my understanding the juveniles were able to have about unfettered access to firearms. This is what happens when you have firearms accessible. It’s just awful."

A police detective declined to say whether it was an accident: “We definitely can’t acknowledge an accidental shooting. We’re treating it as any shooting would be, at this point. In any investigation like this, you can’t rule anything out.”

From the Columbus Dispatch

Tags: US, Ohio, Gun, Weapons, Killed, Age: 10-19

A 7th grade student in Huber Heights, Ohio was arrested April 23 2013 for bringing a laser pointer shaped like a realistic gun to Weisenborn Middle School. The unnamed 12- or 13-year-old boy pointed the “laser gun” at two other students who became frightened and told the principle. Police arrested the boy; he faces criminal charges in juvenile court. He also may be expelled due to violating the school district’s policies about weapons or look-alikes.

An example of a gun-shaped laser pointer. This particular unit emits a 100 mW beam and costs USD $68. An Internet search turns up a wide variety of gun-shaped novelty and toy laser pointers, including some that also have a lighter built in, and a gag pointer that shocks the user when they pull the trigger.

From WDTN.com

Tags: US, Ohio, School, Age: 10-19, Sex: Male, Toy, Gun, Weapons

Braxton Lane, a defensive back for the University of Cincinnati, was arrested September 29 2013 for threatening a police offer with a laser pointer.

At 5:00 am, police responded to a call at a house near the university. Lane, 22, got into a verbal dispute with an officer. He said he would shoot an officer and then aimed a laser pointer from a second-story window at the officer, who felt threatened by potential physical harm. The officer called for backup.

Lane was arrested, and the next day was released on $15,000 bond. A hearing on the charges of menacing and inducing panic was set for October 11. Lane, who had not yet played in any UC football games, was also suspended from the team indefinitely.

From WLWT.com and Fox19

Tags: US, Ohio, Cincinnati, Age: 20-29, Sex: Male, Assault, Police

A man in Barberton, Ohio was issued a court summons for criminal mischief on September 3 2013, for using a laser to damage a neighbor’s surveillance camera. On August 19 2013, the motion sensor on the camera was disabled by a laser beam that was pointed at it. On August 22, the neighbor showed police a video from the surveillance camera, identifying a suspect. Police talked with him and the man admitted aiming the laser at the camera. The case will be heard in Barberton Municipal Court.

From Ohio.com

Tags: US, Ohio, Camera, Harassment, Sex: Male

A 21-year-old was arrested February 6 2012 for aiming a laser pointer at a police officer and a marked squad car in Canton, Ohio. Jeremy L. Wiser also had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court on a drug paraphernalia charge. He was also arrested for the outstanding warrant.

Bond was set at $240. He will appear in court on March 1.

From the Canton Daily Ledger

Tags: US, Ohio, Canton, Police, Age: 20-29, Sex: Male, Drugs

In a road rage incident February 12 2012, four Cincinnati-area teenagers were targeted first by a laser that hit the front seat passenger in the eyes, then by bullets that shattered the window glass and hit one of the teens in the leg. Driver Grady Black said of the other car’s driver "He was in the right lane I was in the left lane and they flipped him off out of the window and the next thing you know he shined the laser into the car, we thought it was just a laser pointer and I hear the window shatter and I took off."

It turned out that the light was from a laser sight on the gun. The injured teenager, Kevin Boegeman, appears to be “alright all things considered.” The perpetrator has not been found as of February 13.

From WKRC Cincinnati

Note from LaserPointerSafety.com: We monitor news reports of laser misuse. One reason for this is to try to get an idea of the relative rate of events such as harassment of the public and of sports figures, aiming at automobiles, aiming at airplanes, etc. We see relatively few reports such as the one above, but have listed it as part of this coverage.
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Tags: US, Ohio, Cincinnati, Car, Driver, Gun, Shot, Motorist, Road rage, Age: 10-19, Assault, Unknown perpetrator

Police in Strongsville (Ohio) were called on December 29 2011 about groups of kids who were throwing snowballs and eggs. Police found one group and escorted them to a home where they were spending the night. A laser pointer was confiscated from one of the kids.

From Strongsville Patch

Note from LaserPointerSafety.com: We monitor news reports of laser misuse. One reason for this is to try to get an idea of the relative rate of events such as harassment of the public and of sports figures, aiming at automobiles, aiming at airplanes, etc. We see relatively few reports such as the one above, but have listed it as part of this coverage.
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Tags: US, Ohio, Harassment, Age: 10-19

A 12-year-old male was charged with felonious assault, for shining a laser pointer into the eye of a 13-year-old female classmate at Monticello Middle School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

The girl did not immediately report the October 5 2011 incident, but waited until after she had pain in her eye and blurred vision. Her parents took her to the hospital and then to an eye specialist. They reported the incident to police on October 11. As of October 12, she still had blurred vision; the status of her eye is unknown.

From Cleveland.com

Tags: US, Ohio, Cleveland, Assault, School, Age: 10-19, Sex: Male

A 37-year-old man was charged with inducing panic and aggravated trespassing, after being caught on Feb. 21 2011 aiming a green laser pointer at the windows of radio stations WTAM-AM and WMMS-FM near Cleveland Ohio. He had also aimed at the stations’ windows two weeks earlier but was not caught on that date.

In addition to the laser harassment, the man also had “littered the entrance” to the stations with pornographic photos on Feb. 8

From Cleveland.com

Tags: US, Ohio, Cleveland, Age: 30-39, Sex: Male, Harassment, Home