Man's Laser Blinded Police Chopper Pilot

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania man was charged with aiming a high-powered laser at a police helicopter cockpit during flight and blinding the pilot.

The FBI says 51-year-old Williamsport resident James Gautieri temporarily blinded Lt. Anthony Ginaldi as he tried to land the helicopter in northeast Philadelphia in April. Ginaldi had to turn over controls to a co-pilot.

Police say they kept their search light on Gautieri's location until officers on the ground arrived to arrest him. Federal prosecutors aren't discussing a possible motive.

Gautieri is charged with interfering with the operation of an aircraft and reckless endangerment. His defense lawyer hasn't returned a telephone call seeking comment.

Source Article: www.foxnews.com...

reply to post by gatorboi117


More BS.

I am gonna have to see some video evidence.

Unless this man had his laser on some sort of tracking mount or the police can produce a video, the police are lying.

Maybe they were breaking the law by flying too low and a member of the militia warned them off.

temporarily blinded...dazzled in other words. Thats going to be a hard thing to try to prove in court. The chancs of hitting someone in the eye though glass and a helmet in a moving (vibrating) vehicle long enough to do anything is very,very small. Ill bet you they saw him shining the light at the chopper and just made the rest up ...

The guy was an idiot, flashing a laser at a chopper.

Who does he think he is, Captain America? What an immature dork.

It could have been a Med-Flight, for all he knew.

No reason to do such a thing. He should be thrown in jail.

[edit on 28-7-2009 by jsobecky]

reply to post by VitalOverdose


Your avatar is so wrong! lol I was under the impression that those lasers don't continue through glass. Ehh, regardless, if he was purposefully hitting them with it, he was interfering with them.

reply to post by Marrr


I agree shining a laser at a police helicopter would be a stupid thing to do but the way the story is presented suggests to me that we are not getting the full truth here.

Ya, they didn't go into much detail. I know what you mean. "A high powered laser" ??

Wow. The amount of police bashing on this board is unreal.

For anyone here who doubts what the cops are saying I have a simple experiment for you:

1) Go get a small, cheap laser pointer.
2) Activate the laser and point it directly into one or both of your eyes.
3) Come back here and report the results. (Oh, by the way, you will probably need some help with this last step as you will not be able to see so well).

People in this thread should realize that civilians can get their hands on very high powered lasers that have the ability to show miles away, even pop balloons. Very dangerous. Here is a quote from a website:

"Laze a non-lethal focused or unfocused beam towards potential threats at a distance. Used properly, the Photonic Disruptor™ will temporarily overwhelm a threat's visual senses without causing permanent eye damage."



[edit on 30-7-2009 by TeddiRevolution]

Originally posted by Marrrlol I was under the impression that those lasers don't continue through glass.

Well they do, and it's probably just a matter of time before the first airliner goes down due to pilots being blinded by lasers.

news.bbc.co.uk...

news.bbc.co.uk...

www.bloomberg.com...

www.wjla.com...

www.cp24.com...

news.sky.com... on_3&lid=ARTICLE_15258275_Larnaca_Airport%3A_Lasers_Used_To_Blind_Pilots_At_Night

That first video video proves my point exactly BBC

not much a risk to eyesight but certainly dazzling.

the chances of the laser pointer hitting someone in a moving target in the eye with a hand held laser long enough to temp blind them is very small. The micro movements in a persons hand holding the laser get amplified over distance so the end of the pointer is shaking all over the place. They say in that BBC video that its a cheap hand held laser but at the end you can see its a very powerful green 500mw that can cost $1000 .

Im not police bashing but the total lack of detail in the original report is suspicious , you have to read between the lines a bit . The main headline says the officer was blinded which would be very bad but then you read on to find he was temp blinded which isnt even provable . So we have one example of exaggeration right there. The report states that the lawyers acting on behalf of the guy arrested havent made any comments like this is a bad thing yet they have no direct quotes from the police either.

The original story is biased or just bad reporting.


[edit on 30-7-2009 by VitalOverdose]

reply to post by craig732


Police bashing? How do you figure? Here's some answers for your experiment.

1. I have a red one on my Walther, but it wasn't cheap
2. Did that on accident once from a distance of 3 feet or less
3. Well, I lived to talk about it and I'm writing this myself

[edit on 30-7-2009 by Marrr]

Originally posted by Marrr
reply to post by craig732

 

Police bashing? How do you figure?

This is how I figure:

Originally posted by Exuberant1
More BS.... the police are lying.

Originally posted by VitalOverdosebet you they saw him shining the light at the chopper and just made the rest up ...

That is just from this thread; the rest of the this board has a multitude of other examples.

As for your personal laser pointer experience, I am glad there was no permanent injury to your eye. Perhaps next time you should read the safety warnings first?

Nah, he's not bashing. My friend is just being speculative.

When I was on the DMZ in Korea in 88, we were informed that the North Koreans had been using lasers on the guard towers along the dmz. There had been individuals who had suffered some loss of sight and symptoms similar to snow blindness. This was shortly before the Army began to issue binoculars to the guardposts with reflective coatings on the lenses to help prevent transmission of light in the uv spectrum and higher.
Some lasers are fairly high powered and using one on a person piloting an aircraft is irresponsible and dangerous.
I'm not backing the police state here. I think much of it is out of control but we need to recognize that some behavior is just plain dangerous.

There were also reports of lasers "dazzling" aircrew on 130's going into Keesler in the 1990s. I think some of them were from the casinos.