Back in July, PINAC reported on the arrest of William Merideth, a Kentucky man who was charged with criminal mischief and wanton endangerment for shooting a remote-controlled quadcopter out of the sky.
Merideth claimed the device was being used to spy on his daughters.
Now, a Bullitt County District Court Judge has dismissed all charges against Merideth, despite the evidence that the drone was flying much higher than Merideth claimed.
“I was in my right to protect my family and my property,” said Merideth, who earlier claimed that Sunday afternoon, the kids – my girls – were out on the back deck, and the neighbors were out in their yard,” Merideth told WDRB.
“And they come in and said, ‘Dad, there’s a drone out here, flying over everybody’s yard.’ Well, I came out and it was down by the neighbor’s house, about 10 feet off the ground, looking under their canopy that they’ve got in their back yard. I went and got my shotgun and I said, ‘I’m not going to do anything unless it’s directly over my property.
Within a minute or so, here it came. It was hovering over top of my property, and I shot it out of the sky. I didn’t shoot across the road, I didn’t shoot across my neighbor’s fences, I shot directly into the air. It was just right there. It was hovering. I would never have shot it if it was flying.”
The drone’s owner, David Boggs, told a different story, providing flight logs to a local news station that showed his quadcopter never flew as low as 10 feet.
At trial, Merideth’s attorney asked Boggs, “Do you also agree that you chose to allow that drone to hover over some of those people’s property there on Earlywood Way?”
“No that’s not true,” replied Boggs, who later said that he will push the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office to take the case to the grand jury.
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