It happened a couple of times where I lived in Orange County, CA. The helicopters are incredibly loud when they hover near the ground, and their loudspeakers are even louder. The blinding searchlights add a memorable effect.
Both times the cops were looking for a guy who just broke into the nearby supermarket.
Couple months back here in Nueva Yorke, cops stopped a mentally disturbed man who was “weeping, bleeding, and cutting himself” at the side of the road.
( darn emo kids)
While waiting for an ambulance to arrive, the guy bolted off into the woods.
Poloce response, not to check the woods, but to pull over cars arriving onto the scene, and buzz businesses and harass employees of same.
So a couple hours go by, one cop finallly finds the weeper in a field, and they take him for evaluation.
Yet they continued with the circling helicopter and vehicle stops for some reason.
Insane.
I see that a guy shot down an LAPD helicopter on Easter sunday 2011.