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Couple Busted For Shining Laser At Helicopter

Posted by kdawson on from the do-not-look-directly-into-laser-beam-with-your-remaining-eye dept.

coondoggie sends us to another Network World piece, this one about a couple charged with shining a green laser into the cockpit of a police helicopter. The FBI and the US attorney's office charged the California couple under a federal statute. They could end up paying a $250,000 fine and doing 20 years of jail time. "The complaint states that on November 8, 2007, at about 10:55 p.m., a green laser beam illuminated the cockpit of a Kern County Sheriff's Department helicopter, which was flying at 500 feet during routine patrol in Bakersfield, California. When the light hit the cockpit, it disoriented the Kern County Sheriff's pilot, causing pain and discomfort in his eyes for a couple of hours, the FBI said in a statement."

6 of 863 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory by Billosaur · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Don't lase me, bro!"

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    GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
    1. Re:Obligatory by Liselle · · Score: 5, Funny
      ThinkGeek Green Laser page: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/5a47/

      Text at the bottom of the page:

      Warning: Green lasers are very powerful. Pointing at aircraft may land you in jail. Without a Monopoly card to get you back out. Use it wisely.

      Hilarious.
      --
      Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
  2. Re:Need a bit more background here by Albert+Sandberg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Was the laser attached to a missile launcher?

    or a shark?

  3. Good! by Hatta · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hate the police as much as anyone, but that's not cool. Unless the helicopter is spotting pot farms, in which case an anti-aircraft missile should be used instead.

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    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  4. Action Shot? by TheLostSamurai · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who else is hoping someone got a picture of these two being arrested so that they can add it to the ThinkGeek product page as an action shot?

    --
    I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
  5. Re:Filtering by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sure.

    Of course, you can get lasers in at least three colors, probably more. And it's significantly hard to filter out just one wavelength, without filtering neghboring wavelengths as well. Which would mean in this case they would want to filter out green. The color of treetops, and grass, and overall a significant portion of the Earth's surface.

    And of course, following that logic, you'd want to filter out the other main colors that lasers come in. Red are extremely common, and blue are just starting to get on the market. So we'll filter both of those out.

    You know what would be a good filter at this point? Polished steel. It'd reflect that laser right away, and convently blocks all the colors mentioned.

    --
    'Sensible' is a curse word.