Crime & Safety
Man Sentenced to Jail for Aiming Laser at Police Helicopter
A local 19-year-old gets a two-and-a-half year sentence for the March 2012 crime.
A 19-year-old North Hollywood man was sentenced Monday to two and a half years in federal prison for shining a laser at a business jet and then aiming the "commercial-grade" device at a police helicopter sent to find the source.
Adam Gardenhire pleaded guilty in October to a single count of aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Gardenhire pointed the laser at a Cessna Citation on March 29, 2012, as the pilot was preparing to land at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, leaving the pilot with vision impairment that lasted several hours.
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Gardenhire then aimed the device at a Pasadena police helicopter that had been dispatched to find the source of the laser that had been pointed at the Cessna, prosecutors said, noting that the helicopter pilot was wearing protecting eye gear and did not suffer any injury.
Prosecutors said laser beams, even penlight-style pointers, can temporarily blind pilots. Though lasers project a tiny beam over relatively short distances, the diameter of the beam grows significantly over the distance of a few miles.
