

Man allegedly shoots down neighbor’s drone with shotgun - cl8ton
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/new-jersey-man-allegedly-shoots-neighbors-drone/?utm_source=o1&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=o1

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JoeAltmaier
First thought: Hooray for the shotgun guy!

Second thought: why arrest a guy for simple property damage? A hundred dollars
damage or so. Isn't that a civil case?

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maxerickson
The article says they arrested him on some charges related to the gun and
criminal mischief. It also says _In addition the criminal charges, the owner
may choose to pursue financial compensation for the destroyed drone._

So I wonder how you decided they arrested him for simple property damage? Do
you mean to obliquely dismiss the other charges?

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JoeAltmaier
Whoa there Max; as I wrote above, it was just a passing thought. Didn't mean
anything but that.

Also around where I live, shooting your shotgun isn't any kind of offence. The
whole article smells of hoax.

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maxerickson
That's fine. My point was that he was not arrested for property damage.

If you want to rephrase it and say _How come discharging a shotgun over
property you don 't own is criminal when all it does is a little bit of
property damage?_, then I'm not left with anything to be pedantic about.

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JoeAltmaier
Thanks. I noticed there's nothing in the article that says where the shotgun
was discharged; nor where the drone was when it was damaged. Also, magically
the drone owner was able to point out where the shotgun was discharged. That
is notoriously difficult to do - echoes, shotgun noise similar to car
backfires etc.

I think its all made up.

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maxerickson
I'm comfortable with the assumption that the drone operator was close enough
to the drone to discern betwixt a gun discharge and other loud bangs. It does
say they were focusing the drone on a house under construction (and even if
they were flying all over the neighborhood, they would still likely end up
keeping a short distance to the drone).

Edit: I'm also comfortable with the assumption that the police took the
location of the firing and such into account when they made the arrest.

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megaman22
I'm afraid this is going to be my dad, if anybody ever flies a drone low over
our family farm...

