Posted on 10/17/2009 7:19:32 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – A Colorado sheriff said he was pursuing criminal charges in the case of a 6-year-old boy who vanished into the rafters of his garage while the world thought he was zooming through the sky in a flying saucer-like helium balloon.
The boy's parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, met with Larimer County investigators for much of the afternoon, but Sheriff Jim Alderden didn't say who would be charged or what the charges would be.
Alderden didn't call Thursday's hours-long drama a hoax, but he expressed disappointment that he couldn't level more serious charges in the incident, which sent police and the military scrambling to save young Falcon Heene as millions of worried television viewers watched.
"We were looking at Class 3 misdemeanor, which hardly seems serious enough given the circumstances," Alderden said. "We are talking to the district attorney, federal officials to see if perhaps there aren't additional federal charges that are appropriate in this circumstance."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Richard Heene (L) holds his son six-year-old Falcon Heene as he talks to reporters outside their house in Fort Collins, Colorado October 15, 2009. Falcon, who set off a massive search and rescue operation and media frenzy after it was reported he was inside a homemade helium balloon that broke loose and drifted for hours thousands of feet above Colorado has been found safe in his attic, police said on Thursday. REUTERS/Rick Wilking (UNITED STATES SOCIETY)
The FAA could prolly come up with something, but that seems stupid. The “craft” was never intended to fly.
I’d be looking at civil damages, not criminal charges. That balloon cost beaucoup $$ to chase, thinking the child was aboard.
I wonder if the most serious charge they could hit them with might be an FAA flight violation. the FAA takes flight space pretty seriously.
I'll see it when I believe it. /s
He probably regrets that he was not more circumspect in his comments yesterday about taking the family at their word, and this is the most tactful way of saying he’s really P.O.’d today.
I called it here before. The guy is a attention whore.
Robert Thomas helped Richard Heene plan the Balloon Hoax.
http://gawker.com/5383858/exclusive-i-helped-richard-heene-plan-a-balloon-hoax
already facebook pages devoted to the family, guess dad’s got his extra 15 minutes
Is the sheriff running for something?
Seems sort of like that DA going after the Duke LAX team.
I think there may be some criminal child abuse charges here, when all the investigating is done. Something is WAY wrong in this family. They’ve apparently dragged their kids into hurricanes as part of their “storm-chasing” obsession, and it now appears that the 6 year old was bullied into participating in a scam that tied up huge amounts of emergency personnel for hours. They were dragging that poor kid around to media interviews, where he threw up twice — both times when the question of why he didn’t come out of hiding was posed. Either the kid was genuinely ill with a stomach flu or something, in which case one vomiting episode should have been the cue to stop dragging him around to media interviews, or the vomiting was due to psychological stress in a kid who’s afraid of getting in trouble for not sticking to lies his father told him to tell. These kids are not living in a situation which is safe for their physical or psychological well-being.
HUGH and SERIES charges, huh?
This guy is a psycho. Making people believe that his 6 year old son fell 10,000 feet to his death. He figured no one would give a damn about his stupid jiffy pop looking balloon so he thought of this idea of making people believe his kid was on board to make it more dramatic and get peoples attention. The Dad belongs in jail, along with his looney tune wife. Both believe they were abducted by aliens
Ok, stupid news for stupid people. Oops there goes another trillion…what just happened…oh the balloon you say? Not sure what was more stupid, the news about the tail or the Fox segment with the girly men trying to be one of the girls.
Yeah but everyone can understand his frustration and i doubt many will criticize him. He will (or would have if he hadn't said this) get a lot of grief for charging the guy only with a measly misdemeanor. So the reality is he probably had to said something like what he said in order to take some heat off him and his department.
I don’t blame him. He’s rightfully pissed that he believed parents who put on a big emotional act about how they were terrified for their young son’s safety, and who truned out to be lying about the whole thing to pursue their dream of endless media attention. Whatever CPS dishes out to these parents, they have it coming. I just hope the kids somehow get a sane and stable home.
Lol, your UFO is a close copy of the balloon ufo. Gave me a laugh.
One newswoman said the balloon was turning like a ferris-wheel........guess she had her head lying on her shoulder or something! snicker
For sure! - But what we don't know is just who it was that said to the authorities that the kid was aboard.
that’s a good one. he can have a reality “jail” tv show?
It is not his job to be POed. If he is POed he should be fired immediately. Going into law enforcement means you have given up your right to opinions and you don’t have th right to have personal feelings about your job either.
You enforce the law as it is written, not as you wish it were written. Your opinion is out of bounds, not unlike military personnel are not allowed to offer political opinions.
That's what I've been thinking, too. I could see the greaseball father slipping the poor kid a little Ipecac before the interviews to generate sympathy for the family. 'Course, it could be stress, as you say, but I wouldn't put anything past the old man; he doesn't seem to have much regard for the welfare of his kids.
Yup.
He doesn’t charge. The DA does.
At the least, the kid sounds like a good candidate for custody (though that shouldn’t be said lightly because often the custody arrangements are almost as scummy as what the child was removed from).
In the picture earlier above, I can almost see the upset kid thinking “here we go again, when will it stop, Daddy?”
We also have a plethora of the same types of nutballs all the way from Las Cruces to and beyond Taos in NM.
Much as I hate government intrusion in making more laws and regulations, anyone who so deceives people and expects government bailout in the form of rescue, ought to foot the bill.
It should be illegal and there should be consequences.
Thank you, this is all just a micro-cosuam-metaphor for the bigger flying fiasco illustrated by the animation of the U F O / Joker poster.
oops, lol, you’re right. But still i think it boils down to the same thing, the sheriff looking to defuse criticism that is bound to come that this guy is only being arrested on misdemeanor charges.
And you're a what?
BTW, it's an attention whore
Kind of like the situation where the girl who was fooled by a stupid woman colluding with some kids, committed suicide out of her dismay. Though no casualties this time. There wasn’t any law forbidding it, though tort claims may be another story. We don’t just make up laws here on the spot, as desirable as we might wish that to be in a certain situation.
bookmark
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This thread is already a magnet for the whining liberal apologists that sleep on FR and pretend to be conservatives
Esp. the gurus, UFO gizmo inventors, sweatlodge Messiahs (watch that story), mystic healers, magic mushroom types and those lacking in mucho (a little Spanish lingo there) gray matter
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That's true and i don't think the sheriff was saying he wanted to "make up laws on the spot", just that he wanted to work with the DA and the Feds to see what laws are already on the book that might be applicable here in order to move it up from a misdemeanor to something more appropriate (not just to protect local authorities from public pressure but also to serve as a deterrent to other wackos who would think "gee, do something like this and all i have to worry about is a lousy misdemeanor!? haha, cool!"). Given the unusual nature of this case, i think it is warranted to take such a step.
You certainly could be right. And I don’t know if the Sheriffs are elected their or not? If he has to run for reelection, I can see why he wants to cover his butt.
They should just file the charges agianst themselves for wasting taxpayer money everyday on boondoggles as bad as this one that never get into the papers or on TV because they constitute “police business as usual.” Or maybe that should be “police state business as usual.”
DRUDGE
BALLOON BUST: CHARGES EXPECTED
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/17/colorado.balloon.boy/index.html
Loon Balloon; We did this for a show;
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091017/D9BCRR780.html
I think civil damages are going to be more onerous than any criminal penalty. Plus there will be the public shame. Any publicity bid has backfired in his face knowing that he caused rescuers to go on a dangerous wild goose chase.
These assets were already paid for whether or not they were chasing balloons or eating donuts.
Eating the donuts is less dangerous... and certainly burns less fuel and incurs less wear and tear on the items and people concerned, as well as not tying up the resources in the event they are needed in some other emergency.
Wow! Well, I’m sure mad at this family and there aren’t laws tough enough to give them life or 40 years or whatever our political masters think should be the punishment. So let’s pass another law so no one will do this again. Make the law real fuzzy so that any parent who reports their kid missing mistakenly is subject to forfeiture of all assets and parental rights. Oh yeah and make the law apply whether there was intent or not. This will mean more easier convictions for our tireless prosecutors.
There, that seems to be the level of law making in the USA these days.
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Thanx potlatch
Chech-ing out yer lynx
I hope you are right. Not sure about the public shame part though. A family that has their young kids perform a vulgar rap video on YouTube where one kid is shown sitting naked on a toilet at one point.....and a family that routinely burps, farts, throws up on tv............well i could be wrong but my guess is they have an extraordinarily high threshold to shame ; )
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