SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Man charged for shooting down drone:
Travis Duane Winters, 34, of Butterfield, was charged with criminal damage to property and reckless discharge of a weapon within city limits Monday in Watonwan County District Court.
A sheriff’s deputy was called Friday to a disturbance at Butterfield Foods. A man said he was flying over the food production company to capture images of the chickens that were being “slaughtered” because of the pandemic.
The suspect admitted to using a shotgun to shoot down the drone — which was valued at $1,900.
I have no idea what you're talking about officer. It must have just crashed. Did that nice gentleman have an FAA permit to fly that drone? He could have hurt someone crashing his drone on our property like that.
Previously:
(2016-01-09) Update: Dad Who Shot Down Drone is Getting Sued. Who Owns the Skies?
(2015-10-28) Update: Dad Who Shot "Snooping Vid Drone" Out of the Sky is Cleared of Charges
(2015-08-02) Man Arrested for Shooting Down Drone Flying Over His Property
(2015-06-29) Man Shoots Down Neighbor's Hexacopter
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday May 18 2020, @08:19AM (30 children)
I'll play the devil's advocate here, and say the guy was entirely justified. The drone was flying over private property with the explicit intent of photographing that property. While this was a business, it's the same principle as the guy who downed the drone that was taking creep-pics of his daughter.
In this sense, the charges are bogus:
Damage to property is justified. The guy talked to the drone operators, instead of leaving, they continued operations. So he discontinued those operations for them. I've of the view that you are justified in taking things into your own hands - there's no need to call the police, when you are simply defending your own rights.
Reckless discharge. The guy saw his target, shot it, and downed it. That's not reckless, that's good shooting. Compare this to the recent event where police raided the wrong house, fired off 20 shots, all of which missed their target, but did kill a woman sleeping in the next room.
tl;dr: While you do not control the airspace over your property, you do have a right to privacy. You are entitled to defend your rights. I sincerely hope that the court agrees.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @09:01AM (4 children)
He should just claim that he is a cop and that he thought it was someones dog.
(Score: 5, Informative) by choose another one on Monday May 18 2020, @10:37AM (2 children)
No need to claim to be a cop, farmers have legal rights to shoot dogs threatening livestock even in no-gun-rights places like the UK.
Long as he can convince the authorities he thought it was a flying dog, should be ok.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday May 18 2020, @03:47PM
That's a very interesting point. If he could legitimately claim it was harassing his livestock could he shoot it down like he would a dog?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday May 18 2020, @04:23PM
> Long as he can convince the authorities he thought it was a flying dog, should be ok.
When pigs can fly!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by driverless on Monday May 18 2020, @11:07AM
Why, was the drone painted black?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @09:51AM
No. The drone operators were smart people who used technology to get around law and custom. Owner was a rural and suburban retard who is uneducated and not smart and his gun is dumb. Drones are Coll.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by helel on Monday May 18 2020, @02:54PM (19 children)
Where does taking things into your own hands to defend your rights end? The drone operator has a right not to have their property destroyed. Would they be justified in shooting the farmer when they see the farmer pointing a gun at the drone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @03:37PM (1 child)
He was just standing his ground.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2020, @12:57AM
Standing his air. Last Air-shooter, ya know. (Last Air-Bender?)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday May 18 2020, @03:38PM (16 children)
That particular right disappears the second he uses the drone to do something illegal on someone else's proper, for example. Rights are only rights while they don't infringe on others rights, and it's pretty clear that drones can be used to perpetrate such infringements.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Booga1 on Monday May 18 2020, @04:19PM (12 children)
Many privacy statutes recognize that using unconventional or technological tools and methods to view private property is invasive and illegal. This means using a ladder or crane to gain a view you would not normally have into someone's property can be illegal. Even a high powered zoom lens to take photographs can put you on the wrong side of the law. Surely flying a drone with a camera close enough to be taken out with a shotgun would be considered extremely invasive.
I think the drone operators may find judges rather unsympathetic, especially since the person flying the drone admitted to flying it over the property.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by insanumingenium on Monday May 18 2020, @05:12PM (1 child)
The drone operator being wrong doesn't make the shooting right. There is room for EVERYONE here to be in the wrong.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Monday May 18 2020, @05:29PM
Absolutely. Judges are especially annoyed when everyone involved in a case is a knucklehead that needs a smack upside the head to remind them to behave. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday May 18 2020, @07:39PM (9 children)
[Citation needed]. Which privacy statute applied in Minnesota in the location the drone was flying in?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Monday May 18 2020, @07:46PM (8 children)
Excellent question. I'm familiar with searching my own state statutes and regulations, but not Minnesota(or other states). Any ideas which section of law for Minnesota would be a good place to start looking?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @09:32PM (5 children)
Obviously not, he wasn't looking for a conversation.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday May 19 2020, @02:25PM (4 children)
Or he was waiting for the person who made the assertion to supply the data behind that assertion, and without the data the point trying to be made falls.
Or he didn't have an answer beyond what Google can tell anybody else. Or he spent time looking and the negative results found made the question rhetorical (like this site which lists nothing for Minnesota between 2013-2019 [ncsl.org]. Or this link [jrupprechtlaw.com] which seems to simply assert that the behavior was lawful - it's legal to fly a drone. Minnesota has indeed had many bills proposed that did not pass. You can go see if any of them are related to privacy.
Some states do indeed address privacy from private owner drone surveillance - Minnesota does not seem to be one of them.
So, now that I'm conversing I'll again ask you, AC... What statutes specific to that locality were breached by the drone flight? And if none, then there you go.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:09PM (3 children)
Ah, well that covers basics for responsibilities of the drone flight requirements, but not not much of the privacy issues surrounding them.
I was hoping to see some links to privacy laws since that was the implication when the question was "Which privacy statute applied in Minnesota in the location the drone was flying in?"
Laws surrounding surveillance in Minnesota are mostly aimed at residences and leaves it unclear with respect to most commercial properties. However, the laws also cover commercial properties if anyone there undresses or expects to be undressed to the point of nudity or wearing only intimate garments(i.e. hotels, tanning salons, spas, etc...). Another section applies the same protections to the agricultural facility if there is a single family home adjacent to the property. [mn.gov]
Relevant statutes [mn.gov] also cover people outside those facilities:
All that said, there are additional statutes [mn.gov] that cover harassment if any of the following events happen:
So, even without privacy implications, it appears that the drone operator might have trouble with statute 609.749, subdivision 2, clause 2 because of the drone, or clause 3 if they were asked to leave and came back on another occasion. A good lawyer would probably still be able to convince a judge to toss the case. Of course, the drone operator wasn't the one who got arrested.
It's the guy firing a gun within city limits who's in hot water. That's much tougher to justify, so I think the guy's got a tough case to plead when he gets in the courtroom.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:22PM (2 children)
I wonder if harassment applies to corporate entities? Surely not the chickens. You're certainly right that if I just spun up a drone and spent all day following you with it that wouldn't be any different from if I did it with an iPhone. Clause 3 I doubt, that would depend on a court's interpretation of what "returning to a property" consists of. Generally, you don't own the airspace about the real property you lease, so as long as I am off your property with my controller I don't think that counts. And it would be interesting how the part on harassment crimes would hold up to both paparazzi and news gathering (which paparazzi would surely claim to be part of).
I doubt that the peeping Tom laws apply either, though. If people get naked outdoors that is again within public view. If they accidentally catch a view of someone naked (let's say through a second-floor window or something) then the charges get thrown out when it can be obviously proven there was no mens rea. "Occupant" makes clear it only applies to indoor spaces.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Tuesday May 19 2020, @07:47PM (1 child)
Your second link provided the pointer to statutes in Minnesota that say the land owners actually do own the airspace above their property. However, the law also generally allows you to fly in it so long as it's done safely and doesn't interfere with use of the land. Though there is some legalese there I don't quite understand. I can't quite tell if it is allowed or denied since the statute says "is lawful, unless... the space above the land or water, is put by the owner..." I don't know what they mean by "put by the owner" and all my searches keeps coming up with rules about stock option "puts." It looks like it's an exception to the default "allow" rule, but I wouldn't want to make a bet on it. :)
As for the harassment laws, they read as if they're intended to apply to harassing a person, but they also spell out protections for properties and rights of way surrounding those properties. Again, mainly focused on residential areas. I doubt a commercial property would have any direct protection except via the people associated with it, like following a person to their workplace. If the drone operator was following a person then they'd be in trouble regardless of location. This whole incident is about the facility, not the people, so unlikely to apply here.
Anyway, my whole point with my original statement is that privacy laws do vary by location. I wasn't trying to say "this guy right here on this specific location on this date was totally in the wrong." It was intended to be a general statement about how some states forbid observation using tools or technology to see what the average person standing next to a property could not see without them. If similar situations come up again I'll just leave the same statement because I really don't feel like looking this information up for every other state the issue comes up in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @08:08AM
Take out the middle section and the meaning is clear.
" .. is lawful, unless at such low altitude as to interfere with the then-existing use to which the land or water is put by the owner ..."
The "is put" is referring to "the then-existing use", as in "put to use". If you are already using the airspace or the land then they cannot fly low enough to interfere with that use.
You could make the argument that if the drone was low enough to bother the animals then it was an illegal flight.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday May 19 2020, @02:27PM (1 child)
(the real answer to my below is that I didn't check my new items until now, BTW... if I'd seen your question earlier I would have replied. But if you look below I supply a couple of links I found while Googling. Posting this here so it might pop on your new messages list.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:14PM
Thanks for the note here, it was helpful. I totally understand not getting right back to someone. We all have lives outside of the internet.
Not getting a response back in a few hours(or a day or two) isn't a big deal. I know I've definitely responded to some people right before going to bed or even forgot about a post entirely.
(Score: 2) by helel on Monday May 18 2020, @04:27PM (2 children)
If your right to property disappears the second you use it to do something illegal then wouldn't the farmer lose the right to his farm the second he failed to meet the letter of the complex and sometimes self-contradictory laws and regulations governing his business? If it's not his farm then the drone operator is within their rights flying a drone over it, filming what happens there.
This mess of "but they did X" can go back forever which is why we have laws, courts, and police to bring people suspected of violating the former to the later.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 18 2020, @11:51PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2020, @12:08AM
In other countries the law assume you are intelligent and if you bother someone with a drone on their property you knew the risk of it getting shot down.
(Score: 4, Informative) by insanumingenium on Monday May 18 2020, @04:13PM (2 children)
That you don't like the drone operator doesn't make violent attacks on his person or property legal. Even if he was there with undeniable criminal intent, violence against his person or property is not on the list of acceptable responses. Call the cops and/or sue the operator, vigilantism isn't acceptable.
The drone was in public airspace (you don't own the air), and photographing anything visible from public is generally protected. Arial photography has usually passed this test. At best this could be a wiretapping/unauthorized recording case (depending on the states take on expectation of privacy) against the drone operator, which I think is potentially justified. But if you think someone is illegally recording you, that doesn't give you the right to shoot their camera. Your right to protect your privacy does not, and should not, require the use of deadly force. The issue with these situations isn't that the drone operators are right, it is that the people shooting at drones are far more wrong.
Even if you take the approach that the guy was trespassing, destroying his property isn't legal in the slightest. If you catch a trespasser with a camera and destroy it, is that not a crime? How is this any different?
Similarly, it is illegal to discharge a gun within the city limits of almost every city, do I have to explain the need for this law to you as well? Nobody was in imminent danger, this is not self defense, it is the definition of a reckless discharge.
tl;dr: Stop encouraging reckless escalation to violence. There is no world where this required a violent response.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @06:12PM (1 child)
stfu, you stupid fucking bitch.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Monday May 18 2020, @11:26PM
I would love to know who modded this insightful. Made my day.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday May 18 2020, @07:33PM
Ok, I'll bite. What right was being violated? Not a generic right, but one enumerated by law that the use of force is justified in protecting?
This sig for rent.