Police Helicopter Sent After My Phantom!!!!

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I was flying my phantom when all of a sudden a police helicopter shows up. It hovered about me. I was flying at about 10 metres altitude at this point to drain my battery. I pack up and leave but the police helicopter stays and watches me. It starts to follow me as I walk home.

As I am walking home police appear from everywhere. A police officer calls out to me to tell me to stop. I walk toward him. He asks if I know why they want to talk to me. I say "ah because I was flying my quad copter"? He say no, we got a 911 call from a woman who says she was at home and nude and I kept taking video of her. WTF??

He ask if my quad has a camera and if I was recording. I tell him I record every flight for evidence in case there is an incident like this.

I told the officer I took off from the park, flew over the water and then took some aerial of the city. He tells me I am being detained and to cooperate or he has to take me to the police station. He asks if I am a voyeur. WTF?? This thing has lots of bright flashing lights and makes lots of noise. I told him I was not close to any buildings and if I were, the camera does not have zoom and has poor low light quality.

He asks to see my quad and tells me not to delete the video. He then proceeds to start pushing every button on my GoPro. I don't know what he was looking for. I offer to show him the video on my iphone. He sees I was telling him the truth and lets me go.

Last week when I went for a flight, 2 police officers came up to me and told me to keep the quad away from buildings because as soon as one goes up in the air, their 911 operators start getting lots of calls.

People calling 911 with no basis to do so should be charged a fee.
 
Let me guess. Austin Texas?
Those people and the cops are flaky.
They recently passed a city ordinance banning smoking in public.
 
In England, the answer is to just walk away from the police as they are powerless, you haven't commited any crime and as such they can't do anything,

Ahh the land of the (not so ) free. :lol:
 
crash1sttime said:
In England, the answer is to just walk away from the police as they are powerless, you haven't commited any crime and as such they can't do anything,

Ahh the land of the (not so ) free. :lol:

Boy is that different from the U.S.A! Here, if you turn your back on a police officer, he is likely to slam you into the ground or taze you! Then, they justify it with the catch all charge of "Disorderly Conduct."

Yes, you can have your day in court or just by seeing a judge if jailed, but the judge isn't going to take your word over a police officer. Yes, this is from experience! As I was talking to the judge, he rudely turned his back on me, messing with papers. I stopped and he told me to continue. How rude! After I finished telling what happened and that I was innocent, he said: "Whatever you did, don't do it again." That meant I was dismissed. I lost all faith in law enforcement and the judicial system and I spent a night and until 5pm the next day, in jail. Later, I called internal affairs and they were just as bad as the officer and judge. The system won even though all charges were dropped.

As you get older, law enforcement kinda leaves you alone, but they despise anyone between 20-40. I wish I knew why.
 
yeah...
Except that in the UK if you were flying within a town or city, you are breaking the law and they can arrest you and confiscate your quadcopter. Also, if you fly within 50M of any building or person, it's also an offence. The police can also require you to stop filming a crime scene or road accident and will simply arrest you for breach of the peace or obstruction.
More than one person has been arrested for failing to cooperate and it took them some days to get their bird back.

Not sure we have sent a police helicopter out for a quad yet, but it will probably only be a matter of time!
 
Nice to know valuable taxpayer dollars are spent on a helicopter that costs over $1,000/hour to operate and several police cars were sent chasing after a potential Peeping Tom case.

God forbid they actually try to spend their time going after terrorists, child abductors, rapists, and drug dealers!

Jesus.
 
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Pretty standard response.
He was flying, a citizen called, the police arrived, the police investigated, no crime was committed, the officer was curious, the police explained the situation and let him go.
The helicopter was probably just in the area. Most large cities have 24 hour air patrol service.
 
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PhantomFanatic said:
As you get older, law enforcement kinda leaves you alone, but they despise anyone between 20-40. I wish I knew why.

The older generation generally has a more respectful tone when dealing with "persons in authority".
I couldn't be a law enforcement officer. Eye rolls drive me crazy! :roll: ;)
 
alanw2005 said:
I was flying my phantom when all of a sudden a police helicopter shows up. It hovered about me. I was flying at about 10 metres altitude at this point to drain my battery. I pack up and leave but the police helicopter stays and watches me. It starts to follow me as I walk home.

As I am walking home police appear from everywhere. A police officer calls out to me to tell me to stop. I walk toward him. He asks if I know why they want to talk to me. I say "ah because I was flying my quad copter"? He say no, we got a 911 call from a woman who says she was at home and nude and I kept taking video of her. WTF??

He ask if my quad has a camera and if I was recording. I tell him I record every flight for evidence in case there is an incident like this.

I told the officer I took off from the park, flew over the water and then took some aerial of the city. He tells me I am being detained and to cooperate or he has to take me to the police station. He asks if I am a voyeur. WTF?? This thing has lots of bright flashing lights and makes lots of noise. I told him I was not close to any buildings and if I were, the camera does not have zoom and has poor low light quality.

He asks to see my quad and tells me not to delete the video. He then proceeds to start pushing every button on my GoPro. I don't know what he was looking for. I offer to show him the video on my iphone. He sees I was telling him the truth and lets me go.

Last week when I went for a flight, 2 police officers came up to me and told me to keep the quad away from buildings because as soon as one goes up in the air, their 911 operators start getting lots of calls.

People calling 911 with no basis to do so should be charged a fee.

I'd like to know what city you were flying, what part of the city, how high were you flying, were you near certain buildings, etc etc.

Would you mind giving more details? I believe that there may be a number of key variables that are being left out.
 
Yes, it sure does seem a bit suspicious to me, that he had 2 different encounters with police, according to his post. From his videos(posted in another thread), it appears he was filming at False Creek, Vancouver, Canada. And he does seem to be very close to several high rise apartment buildings. Perhaps that explains why people were calling the police on him.
 
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Khudson7 said:
Yes, it sure does seem a bit suspicious to me, that he had 2 different encounters with police, according to his post. From his videos(posted in another thread), it appears he was filming at False Creek, Vancouver, Canada. And he does seem to be very close to several high rise apartment buildings. Perhaps that explains why people were calling the police on him.

Yep. A little like announcing "my home got raided by the police while watching TV", and dropping off.

I can't justify becoming nervous about watching TV after reading that ;-)
 
alanw2005 said:
As I am walking home police appear from everywhere. ....

Really ? How many are we talking here ?
Your police station sounds very over staffed :)
 
Pmcdn said:
Yep. A little like announcing "my home got raided by the police while watching TV", and dropping off.

I can't justify becoming nervous about watching TV after reading that ;-)
HaHa...made me laugh.

Here is the video he post in another thread...
http://youtu.be/UC7DoGe1EaY
At the end as it is coming down, he is so close to the apt. building, I can see into someone's apt. A man sitting on his couch, gets up and goes to window, probably to see what the hell is that racket right outside his window.

But the OP did say in that thread, his phantom did go into auto land mode because of low battery, so he may not have been in control of it, when it came down so close to that apartment building. For the sake of that man in the apartment, it was a good thing that man was not doing anything...embarrassing :eek: :shock:
 
jacko.jpg
 
PhantomFanatic said:
crash1sttime said:
In England, the answer is to just walk away from the police as they are powerless, you haven't commited any crime and as such they can't do anything,

Ahh the land of the (not so ) free. :lol:

Boy is that different from the U.S.A! Here, if you turn your back on a police officer, he is likely to slam you into the ground or taze you! Then, they justify it with the catch all charge of "Disorderly Conduct."

Yes, you can have your day in court or just by seeing a judge if jailed, but the judge isn't going to take your word over a police officer. Yes, this is from experience! As I was talking to the judge, he rudely turned his back on me, messing with papers. I stopped and he told me to continue. How rude! After I finished telling what happened and that I was innocent, he said: "Whatever you did, don't do it again." That meant I was dismissed. I lost all faith in law enforcement and the judicial system and I spent a night and until 5pm the next day, in jail. Later, I called internal affairs and they were just as bad as the officer and judge. The system won even though all charges were dropped.

As you get older, law enforcement kinda leaves you alone, but they despise anyone between 20-40. I wish I knew why.

+1
 

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