Man flying drone over crash scene in OH arrested
More from Curt Varone at FireLawBlog.com
Well, this was bound to happen soon. Concerns over interference with a medical chopper landing at crash scene in Ohio brings confrontation and arrest of a man with a UAV.
Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly says Kele Stanley of Springfield was arrested over the weekend for flying a drone over an accident scene while CareFlight was trying to land.
Stanley was charged with misconduct at an emergency, obstructing official business and disorderly conduct.
“I’m simply a cinematographer flying a camera to get that extra angle of a shot,” said Stanley.
Stanley tells us he couldn’t hear officials at the scene of the car accident asking him to cease operations because it was so loud.
Holly Zachariah, Columbus Dispatch:
“I am not an idiot,” said Stanley, who said he was shooting the video as a hobby and would have turned it over to local television stations, as he has done before. “If I had known that Care Flight was on the way, my helicopter would have come down immediately. There wouldn’t have been any dispute.”
Stanley, a 31-year-old copy-machine repairman who videotapes weddings as a side business, posted his $425 bail after being arrested by Clark County deputies about 10 a.m. Saturday. He had his initial court appearance yesterday on a felony charge of obstructing official business and misdemeanor charges of misconduct at an emergency and disorderly conduct.
Allison Wichie, Sprinfield News-Sun:
Moorefield Twp. Assistant Fire Chief Rick Hughes said he asked Stanley twice to ground his drone, the second time because of CareFlight, according to a statement in Sheriff’s Office arrest report. After initially grounding his hexa-copter camera, Stanley put the drone back up in the air and when Hughes asked Stanley to bring the drone down the second time, he told Stanley CareFlight would be responding in three minutes, according to the statement.
But Stanley said he was not informed that CareFlight was responding until after the deputy spoke to him and he brought his camera down. He was arrested a short time later and his $2,500 drone was confiscated by deputies.
