Posted on 07/29/2015 7:19:24 AM PDT by Rodamala
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Hillview man has been arrested after he shot down a drone flying over his property -- but he's not making any apologies for it.
It happened Sunday night at a home on Earlywood Way, just south of the intersection between Smith Lane and Mud Lane in Bullitt County, according to an arrest report.
Hillview Police say they were called to the home of 47-year-old William H. Merideth after someone complained about a firearm.
When they arrived, police say Merideth told them he had shot down a drone that was flying over his house. The drone was hit in mid-air and crashed in a field near Merideth's home.
Police say the owner of the drone claimed he was flying it to get pictures of a friend's house -- and that the cost of the drone was over $1,800.
Merideth was arrested and charged with first degree criminal mischief and first degree wanton endangerment. He was booked into the Bullitt County Detention Center, and released on Monday.
WDRB News spoke with Merideth Tuesday afternoon, and he gave his side of the story.
"Sunday afternoon, the kids – my girls – were out on the back deck, and the neighbors were out in their yard," Merideth said. "And they come in and said, 'Dad, there’s a drone out here, flying over everybody’s yard.'"
Merideth's neighbors saw it too.
"It was just hovering above our house and it stayed for a few moments and then she finally waved and it took off," said neighbor Kim VanMeter.
VanMeter has a 16-year-old daughter who lays out at their pool. She says a drone hovering with a camera is creepy and weird.
"I just think you should have privacy in your own backyard," she said.
Merideth agrees and said he had to go see for himself.
“Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor’s house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they’ve got under their back yard," Merideth said. "I went and got my shotgun and I said, ‘I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.’"
That moment soon arrived, he said.
"Within a minute or so, here it came," he said. "It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky."
"I didn't shoot across the road, I didn't shoot across my neighbor's fences, I shot directly into the air," he added.
It wasn't long before the drone's owners appeared.
"Four guys came over to confront me about it, and I happened to be armed, so that changed their minds," Merideth said.
"They asked me, 'Are you the S-O-B that shot my drone?' and I said, 'Yes I am,'" he said. "I had my 40mm Glock on me and they started toward me and I told them, 'If you cross my sidewalk, there's gonna be another shooting.'"
A short time later, Merideth said the police arrived.
"There were some words exchanged there about my weapon, and I was open carry – it was completely legal," he said. "Long story short, after that, they took me to jail for wanton endangerment first degree and criminal mischief...because I fired the shotgun into the air."
Merideth said he was disappointed with the police response.
"They didn’t confiscate the drone. They gave the drone back to the individuals," he said. "They didn’t take the SIM card out of it…but we’ve got…five houses here that everyone saw it – they saw what happened, including the neighbors that were sitting in their patio when he flew down low enough to see under the patio."
Hillview Police detective Charles McWhirter of says you can't fire your gun in the city.
"Well, we do have a city ordinance against discharging firearms in the city, but the officer made an arrest for a Kentucky Revised Statute violation," he said.
According to the Academy of Model Aeronautics safety code, unmanned aircraft like drones may not be flown in a careless or reckless manner and has to be launched at least 100 feet downwind of spectators.
The FAA says drones cannot fly over buildings -- and that shooting them poses a significant safety hazard.
"An unmanned aircraft hit by gunfire could crash, causing damage to persons or property on the ground, or it could collide with other objects in the air," said FAA spokesman Les Dorr.
Merideth said he's offering no apologies for what he did.
"He didn’t just fly over," he said. "If he had been moving and just kept moving, that would have been one thing -- but when he come directly over our heads, and just hovered there, I felt like I had the right."
"You know, when you’re in your own property, within a six-foot privacy fence, you have the expectation of privacy," he said. "We don't know if he was looking at the girls. We don’t know if he was looking for something to steal. To me, it was the same as trespassing."
For now, Merideth says he's planning on pursuing legal action against the owners of the drone.
"We’re not going to let it go," he said. "I believe there are rules that need to be put into place and the situation needs to be addressed because everyone I’ve spoke to, including police, have said they would have done the same thing."
"Because our rights are being trampled daily," he said. "Not on a local level only - but on a state and federal level. We need to have some laws in place to handle these kind of things."
I do believe that the courts have determined that your property lines extend vertically (and possibly, infinitely?) unless, like subterranean property lines (AKA: mineral rights) you have exchanged those rights for recompense.
Think: military fly zones.
Sounds good but...
I ain’t cleaning your gun, brother!
The loss of the drone would be proven if operator was recording the live feed from the camera. Of course, depending on what else was recorded, he may not want to submit such evidence to the court.
Not to mention snooping for things to steal for fun and profit, monitoring the movements of potential burglary targets, etc.
Jammers might work for a while, as long as they’re not used continuously (FCC will be on you), but with state of the art sensors and processors, a drone losing the signal from base would merely put it into fail safe mode to return to base via inertial navigation.
Don’t know if they’re that sophisticated yet, but they will. Heck, they’ll have them fully autonomous and programmable (commercially) if they aren’t already.
S S S
:-)
If you did that enough times hopefully the operator would realize that the drone is not welcome in certain parts. His craft is intact, and you aren't causing any damage.
Escalation. Yep that’s the way it started. We’d send up a scout plane for recon, they’d send up a plane with a guy and a gun to shoot it down. Then we’d send up planes to shoot at the other guy in a plane with a gun and thus was the birth of the fighter aircraft.
Fighter drones may actually come about quicker in the civilian world than the military one. Who knows.
No. According to the federal airspace rules, radio control model airplanes are limited to no more than 400' altitude.
Also, they cannot fly over buildings and must be kept at least 100' from people.
R/C aircraft must also be flown specifically by line of sight. They cannot be flown first-person video (FPV)
Naturally, a lot of drone owners disregard these rules and do whatever they darn well please.
I have no sympathy for these idiots. They got what they deserved. I hope the shotgun blast did significant damage to their drone. The only reason they were flying so low was to shoot video. (read: peeping tom)
Yea, hopefully, but we’re not always talking about deep thinkers either.
A few years ago, some angry hunters blew a drone out of the sky being operated by some animal rights activist. Anyone remember how that one finally turned out?
“Fighter drones may actually come about quicker in the civilian world than the military one. Who knows.”
Oh, there already is one- as one commenter said after viewing the video “the world just got a whole lot scarier”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqHrTtvFFIs
Helluva caliber.
Hopefully, but only after the shooter has spent thousands of dollars on lawyer's fees.
If I were charged with shooting the drone I would sue the drone's owner for invading my privacy. In any event, I don't believe a jury would find the shooter guilty of a crime since they would know that some other drone's owner could fly his drone over their property with impunity based on a conviction of the property owner in this case.
On another much more serious note, my son is a pilot for a major airline and he knows of at least one flight crew that has been virtually blinded by a laser during a critical landing procedure. That crime is far more dangerous than anything a drone could possibly do, and the perp is almost impossible to find. Maybe after a few hundred passengers are killed as a result of some teenager's fun and games played with a laser the feds will get serious about stopping that criminal activity and prosecuting the offenders to the full extent of the law.
Fired by crossbow or gun, connected to reel.
Or even a fishing rig.
Rope that peeper and bring it down.
Yea, it did.
My best to your son, who I’ll likely be flying with.
Thanks for the good wishes Doug, his mom and I pray for his safety every day.
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