Bloke whose drone was blasted out of sky by angry dad loses another court battle

[steve2470]

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/25/drone_slayer_rules_in_court/

An appeals court has snubbed a drone owner's demand for $1,500 compensation from a furious dad who blew the flying gizmo out of the sky when it hovered over his family.

In July 2015, William Merideth, 47, was at home in Hillview, Kentucky, America, when his daughter came in from sunbathing in the garden to say there was a drone buzzing overhead. As a firm believer in his Second Amendment rights, Merideth loaded up his shotgun with bird shot, waited until the camera-fitted quadcopter came over his home, and then took it down with a single shot – which bought the drone's operators running.

"They asked me, 'Are you the S-O-B that shot my drone?' and I said, 'Yes I am'," he told journalists. "I had my Glock on me and they started toward me and I told them, 'If you cross my sidewalk, there's gonna be another shooting'."

The police were called and they arrested Merideth – not for shooting down the drone per se, but for discharging a firearm within city limits. In October, a judge agreed with Merideth (now known as the Drone Slayer) that he was within his rights to take down the trespassing drone. The dad was cleared of all charges.

[greytdemocrat]

1. LOL!!!

Pretty good!

[Luciferous]

2. He's lucky all he lost was his drone- what a creep!

[csziggy]

3. I don't blame the shooter at all

I had a situation decades ago when my next door neighbor's son had been hired as a helicopter pilot for the state Division of Law Enforcement. They had just added a FLIR unit and were testing to see if they could recognize marijuana patches with it.

That day the pilot decided to check out his neighborhood and zoned in on a stand of young pines in our lower pasture - apparently the heat signature of young pines is similar to that of cannibis plants. He hovered the copter over that field, below treetop level, lower than the ridge where our barn was located. I was trying to turn the horses out after morning feeding but they were spooked by the noisy, low helicopter.

I called the local airport tower and they said they could not identify the craft since it was law enforcement. So I called the state headquarters and got in touch with their flight supervisor. The entire time the copter was still hovering over my field, the horses were getting more and more upset, and I was getting more and more pissed. I told the supervisor that if they wanted to identify the plants in my lower pasture, they could come in the front gate - but if one of my horses was injured or one of my broodmares miscarried, their agency WOULD pay for it.

Within two minutes of that conversation, the copter lifted and headed towards the airport. My neighbor's son never came over to apologized and no one from the DLE ever came to check out the pine trees.

If I had kept a gun at my barn, I might have fired at the damn helicopter that was impinging on my air space and endangering my livestock.

[Jonny Appleseed]

4. Yeah he's a creep

But don't threaten to shoot the guy for trespassing. And yeah, this sounds like a great libertarian folk hero story, but firings guns into the air can still kill people when the bullets come down and the drone debris could have hurt nearby people in the residential neighborhood. Sure, we all want to be Ron Swanson, shooting down a drone with our shotgun, but we've built a culture geared towards being too gungho. Did the potential risks of falling metal and buckshot really get out weighted by some voyeur seeing your daughter's skin? Couldn't she just go into the house and you call the police? Did you need to validate your patriarch complex by "defending your daughter's honor" with your shotgun?

No wonder Europe thinks we're insane.

[Stryst]

6. I would normally agree with you, and I think he had alternatives,

But he used a 12g shotgun loaded with birdshot. That's basically just BBs. Dangerous when the entire group of shot is being projected by the powder, but if falling birdshot has ever killed anyone, I'll apologize for this entire post.

Still, lets not all go discharging shotguns in city limits.

[NickB79]

7. "don't threaten to shoot the guy for trespassing"

That's not what the homeowner did, though.

There were three visibly angry men shouting at him and approaching him in his front yard. He had just shot down a very expensive piece of their property.

It's pretty clear those guys were planning on doing more than trespassing if they came onto his property to confront him. The best choice would have been to retreat into his home, lock the door and call the police, but I don't fault him for warning them he'd defend himself if attacked.

Also, as another poster stated, birdshot doesn't hurt you when it comes down. I've personally been pinged a few times by birdshot when the hunters on the opposite side of the lake fired at ducks in the air and the shot came down on us in our duck boat. Hell, Dick Cheney shot that one guy right in the face from 40 yards away and he walked away with no major injuries.

[NWCorona]

5. It's people like this guy that's ruining the RC hobby for every one.

I kinda wish it still took skill to fly. There'd be a lot less of these incidents.

[bathroommonkey76]

8. Just wait till the police,

Amazon, and other companies start using these drones on a regular basis. People will be shooting a heck of a lot more of them out the sky. lol

Last year a box-type drone flew about 500 ft above my head, if I had a gun with me at the time I would have shot that bastard down. That was the same night I witnessed at least 100 or so drones flying around the sky.




MOORE COUNTY, North Carolina (WTVD) -- The Moore County Sheriff's Office has a new tool. Three deputies are now trained and certified to fly a drone. It's a tool only a handful of other law enforcement agencies in the state have.

Sheriff Neil Godfrey says they're already making good use of the new addition.

"We almost had to use it yesterday morning a lady with Alzheimer's walked off and we were in the process of using a drone when we found her," said Godfrey.

The drone comes equipped with a high-definition camera, speeds of 45 miles per hour and the capability to fly 1000 feet in the air. Drones provide law enforcement with an extra set of eyes.

http://abc11.com/technology/moore-county-sheriffs-office-gets-new-drone/1748774/