Judge Dismisses Charges For Man Who Shot Down Drone

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It's open season on drones in Kentucky. Does anyone else find it funny that this all happened in Bullit county?


A Bullitt County District Court Judge has dismissed all charges against a man who shot down a drone he said was flying over his property. The court hearing for William Merideth began Monday afternoon. He shot down a drone in Hillview earlier this year. Merideth said the operator was violating his privacy and spying on his family, but Hillview police arrested Merideth for firing his gun within city limits and charged him with wanton endangerment.

 
I'm not surprised. You can go to just about any electronics store now and get a serviceable drone for less than the cost of a new TV... complete with hi-def camera. Most drone operators are probably great people. But there's always a few ass-hats out there that ruin it for everyone else. Being a nuisance or a peeping tom will get your toy broken. I think this property owner should have talked to the drown owner first before going the route he did though.
 
Hovering over that property 3 times in one day is pretty much harassment. Deserved what happened as far as I'm concerned.
 
I don't have a problem with people wanting to take down "drones" violating their privacy, but I still believe this man deserved to have charges pressed against him.

I'm not familiar with the area, but they did say he was charged with firing a weapon within "city limits", which suggests that it is at leas a reasonably densely populated area. When you fire a gun into the air like that, the bullets eventually come back down, and there is a real risk of some innocent bystander several blocks away getting seriously injured if not killed.

It stands out as weird to me that the issue of whether or not the drone was violating his privacy was a deciding factor in the case. The most important part here is the recklessness, whether or not there was a drone there in the first place. Sure, let him get off of any "destruction of property" charges, but any "reckless endangerment" charges should stand. You can't just fire weapons into the air in densely populated areas, regardless of how you feel about the "drone" flying overhead...
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm not familiar with the area, but they did say he was charged with firing a weapon within "city limits", which suggests that it is at leas a reasonably densely populated area. When you fire a gun into the air like that, the bullets eventually come back down, and there is a real risk of some innocent bystander several blocks away getting seriously injured if not killed.
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If I recall correctly, he was using bird shot to take out the drone which doesn't have the risk that you're talking about.
 
Ididar said:
If I recall correctly, he was using bird shot to take out the drone which doesn't have the risk that you're talking about.
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Ah, that wasn't stated in the article. Still I don't think I'd want birdshot in my eye either :p
 
viscountalpha said:
Slingshot with a small net might be effective. Hmmm
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I've thought about that a well. Some kind of netted device that will capture the device without a runaway projectile, i.e. a firearm.

Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't have a problem with people wanting to take down "drones" violating their privacy, but I still believe this man deserved to have charges pressed against him.

I'm not familiar with the area, but they did say he was charged with firing a weapon within "city limits", which suggests that it is at leas a reasonably densely populated area. When you fire a gun into the air like that, the bullets eventually come back down, and there is a real risk of some innocent bystander several blocks away getting seriously injured if not killed.

It stands out as weird to me that the issue of whether or not the drone was violating his privacy was a deciding factor in the case. The most important part here is the recklessness, whether or not there was a drone there in the first place. Sure, let him get off of any "destruction of property" charges, but any "reckless endangerment" charges should stand. You can't just fire weapons into the air in densely populated areas, regardless of how you feel about the "drone" flying overhead...
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I agree with you, but there is always a arbitrary line or in this case the city limit. For example I live on the other side of the city limit line which allows me to discharge a firearm on my property. The next street over is within the city limits and it is illegal to discharge a firearm within the city limits. Population density has not changed over that 150 yards to the line. While I wouldn't want my neighbors firing in to the air, at least is was bird-shot and those tiny pellets coming back down shouldn't do any damage.

Some one should come up with anti drone projectiles, maybe closed foam balls out of a paint ball gun, or maybe just a paintball gun. Powerful jet of water?
 
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Silentbob343 said:
Some one should come up with anti drone projectiles, maybe closed foam balls out of a paint ball gun, or maybe just a paintball gun. Powerful jet of water?
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I've been thinking along these lines too.

The As Seen on TV™ Drone Drowner™ garden hose attachment.

I wonder what altitude you can reach through optimum stream shaping. You could always up the pressure, power-washer style, but too much power and the stream just degrades into a fine mist after a few feet.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I've been thinking along these lines too.

The As Seen on TV™ Drone Drowner™ garden hose attachment.

I wonder what altitude you can reach through optimum stream shaping. You could always up the pressure, power-washer style, but too much power and the stream just degrades into a fine mist after a few feet.
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Water wouldn't do it. At least not from a garden hose. If you could get the stream as high as the Drone the other issue would be fighting the propwash which can be substantial on larger rigs.

As for foam balls from a paintball gun, the props would chop up something like that with ease. Direct hits on the craft would have a negligible effect. You'd need to damage the props to bring it down.

Of course these options are really only viable for a drone under 100-150ft. Considering most pilots flying camera rigs want some nice landscape views and don't care for shots of the scrap pile in your backyard they would generally be higher than that.

If someone flying a drone next to your property is an invasion of privacy to you, you should be taking the matter up with Google. A drone pilot has no interest in posting your backyard or dirty gutters online.

In all my experience drone pilots are nothing but friendly to people interested and concerned about what they are doing. They know people are uneasy about what they do as a job or hobby. They try to be as transparent as possible and in my experiance always willing to show people what they are doing, the shots they are getting. A dslr and nice lens are far more invasive and way less detctable than a drone but you don't see people going and shooting in the windows of cars parked in their street.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Ah, that wasn't stated in the article. Still I don't think I'd want birdshot in my eye either :p
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It's about equivalent in feeling to someone tossing a small handful of sand up in the air and having it rain down on you. Except the sand is bigger.
 
I can understand why the judge dismissed this case. After all, there is still no defined federal rules regarding the airspace above your property. The FAA is currently working on getting it defined in black and white. For this man to be charged even with discharging a firearm within city limits would be making some precedent on the rules which may or may not have to be addressed later through appeals, etc. as soon as the Fed finally makes up their damn minds. That probably won't change the fact that the drone owner can sue for damages in a civil suit.

Regarding the airspace rules. It's still a gray area in Federal Law. United States v. Causby defines the maximum airspace above the property at a maximum of 83 feet, while at the same time defining the minimum safe altitude for aircraft at 500 feet, leaving a huge gray area. This case is woefully out of date, but unfortunately the only one that defines it.

FWIW, there's been a bunch of evidence in this case already, notably telemetry data from the drone showing altitude of several hundred feet and that it actually did not cross this man's property line. It was close enough to be a near vertical shot from the shooter's perspective.
 
If that drone was able to be taken down with #8 shot, it was very low.... definitely less than 150'... probably less than 100' altitude. Even horizontally, bird shot has pretty much lost all it's punch in less than 40 yards. Vertically it's worse.
 
Old_Way said:
If that drone was able to be taken down with #8 shot, it was very low.... definitely less than 150'... probably less than 100' altitude. Even horizontally, bird shot has pretty much lost all it's punch in less than 40 yards. Vertically it's worse.
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Not true. The shot may not puncture a bird's flesh at that altitude, but all it has to do is unbalance one propeller on the drone and it might fall from the sky. It doesn't even have to break the propeller. It won't take much to unbalance a 4 bladed drone like the DJ Phantom that was used. It doesn't have much redundancy to help balance things out. 6 and 8 bladed drones do much better in this regard.
Here's data on a vertical shot.
Maximum Altitude For Bullets Fired Vertically | Close Focus Research - Ballistic Testing Services

12 gauge #7 1/2 shot, maximum altitude 627 feet. #8 shot wouldn't be too far off in maximum height. The drone's recorded telemetry showed 272 feet. That's a little less than 1/2 the maximum altitude that shot could have traveled, leaving plenty of energy left to knock a propeller off balance and crash a drone.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't have a problem with people wanting to take down "drones" violating their privacy, but I still believe this man deserved to have charges pressed against him.

I'm not familiar with the area, but they did say he was charged with firing a weapon within "city limits", which suggests that it is at leas a reasonably densely populated area. When you fire a gun into the air like that, the bullets eventually come back down, and there is a real risk of some innocent bystander several blocks away getting seriously injured if not killed.

It stands out as weird to me that the issue of whether or not the drone was violating his privacy was a deciding factor in the case. The most important part here is the recklessness, whether or not there was a drone there in the first place. Sure, let him get off of any "destruction of property" charges, but any "reckless endangerment" charges should stand. You can't just fire weapons into the air in densely populated areas, regardless of how you feel about the "drone" flying overhead...
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I've been hit by shotgun pellets from about 200+ yards and they sting a little, but they generally don't break the skin from that distance. Now that is from people shooting Dove and the angle could be pretty low which would have the shot returning to earth at a shorter distance or a higher angle where the shot would simply fall at terminal velocity without enough kinetic energy to do much harm. If the shot is say Number 8 bird shot. Now if the guy is a dumbass and uses 00 Buck on the drone from a lower angle, now you are taking a real chance of hurting someone. And if they guy was using a handgun or a rifle with standard ammunition like FMJ, then he's not just a criminal but he's a mentally challenged criminal in my book cause that is stupid beyond belief inside the city limits.
 
Old_Way said:
If that drone was able to be taken down with #8 shot, it was very low.... definitely less than 150'... probably less than 100' altitude. Even horizontally, bird shot has pretty much lost all it's punch in less than 40 yards. Vertically it's worse.
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From the article it would seem that tree height figured into things. If the drone us very much higher then it's not considered an encroachment on the property because a person's property rights don't extend upwards above what is considered "usable".

Overall you are pretty close on how effective a Dove Load is on birds. I can't say for sure on drones. I simply have no real experience shooting and eating those :sneaky:
 
I did think about this and BLINDING a drone with a laser pointer would be very effective at stopping the peeper!
 
Well, using the unusual unit of measure Story, it would have been flying at a height equivalent roughly to a 25 story building. That property owner sure had quite the eyes to track an object flying that high. Honestly next time you don't mind looking stupid try and count up to the 25th floor of a building from the ground and imagine a drone sized object, would you have been able to hit it, even with the spread of birdshot? heck at that distance, the spread would make me question how much damage could it actually do.

EDIT:
Wth Steve this news was from October 26th 2015 lol >.< Updated: Oct 26, 2015 9:43 PM
 
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Starting to seriously doubt the drone owner at this point. The video from the news link shows you the drone and it's not very large. Hitting that thing while moving at just short of 300ft with nothing but a bead would be pretty difficult. But the guys house is only 2 stories tall and it was hoving just over the house and below the tree line... That is like 100ft ish.... Perfectly viable for bird shot.
 
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