The man found out what happens when a green laser is aimed at a police helicopter during a chase

A Virginian man learned a lesson about how to play stupid games and win stupid prizes last week when he was arrested for allegedly aiming a green laser at a police helicopter.

The helicopter was in the air helping ground forces hunt down a suspect on the run near an apartment complex in Lorton, Fairfax County, Virginia around 11:30 p.m. Friday when the plane’s crew was hit by a laser beam. WUSA-TV reported.

Video taken from the site police The helicopter shows someone standing on the balcony of an apartment building and directing an intense green laser beam into the cockpit of the aircraft.

The helicopter crew alerted police on the ground, and they later identified the 25-year-old man at an apartment complex located in the 9200 block of Ashland Woods Lane in Lorton, which is about half an hour southwest of Alexandria, a Washington suburb. .

The man was arrested and released on bail without bail.

“Aiming a laser at an aircraft is illegal and also a very bad idea when that aircraft is a police helicopter,” facebook post read by the Fairfax County Police Department.

The man, whose name has not been publicly identified, faces a Class 1 misdemeanor, a punishment for the offense of tampering with an aircraft in Virginia.

While the man’s actions were dangerous enough, worse things could have happened, as happened in Detroit in January when a man was shot dead by police after attempting to blind police helicopter Crew in Motor City.

Michigan State Police faced A 33-year-old man who was hiding in an abandoned house when they tracked him down after he allegedly pointed a laser at a police helicopter and then shot at the plane.

And it seems to happen a lot these days. Just last year, a man in St. Louis was arrested for pointing a laser at a Metro Air Support police helicopter. KSDK-TV reported at the time.

The station added that as of February 2022, there had already been five laser strikes in Missouri, with more than 9,000 such incidents reported per year, some resulting in injury and many committed as attacks on the police.

This trick is not only performed by idiots on the balconies of apartment buildings. Last February, a Chinese warship fired a green laser on an Australian Air Force P-8 during hostilities in Australian waters that nearly led to an international incident.

These lasers are quite dangerous for the pilot and crew. They can temporarily blind the pilot, compromising his safety.

How ABC news As noted in 2020 following a similar Customs and Border Protection helicopter incident, hitting a laser in the cockpit of an aircraft is a federal crime.

If found guilty, criminals in the US could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

So, if you know someone who thinks this is “fun”, remind them of these stories and let them know that they can pay dearly for such nonsense.