Drone Pilot arrested whilst drone in air

Rob Cantwell · January 8th, 2015, 03:22 PM

Hi Roger, no offence taken, I do understand that police face lots of challenging and difficult situations every day, but I also believe that they also are duty bound to uphold the law especially as it impacts on them, in the video of Mr. Mitchell's arrest they havent exactly covered themselves in glory, it could be even argued that they might have been causing a breach of the peace!
One thing is clear, they acted irresponsibly when they grabbed the controller from the operators hands, it might have been a different story had the drone, during the struggle, been brought down on top of someone or vehicle or whatever.

From a moral/ethical standpoint - I would agree that filming this sort of thing is somewhat distasteful and not a newsworthy item.
Of course, poor morals aren't against the law.

:-)

David Heath · January 9th, 2015, 12:55 PM

Rob - reading the report from your earlier post, there seem to be a lot of queries between what the operator says happened, and some of the other evidence. Most notably if all he had done was introduce himself to the police, wait, then take off without any further word (as he claims), then the officers first words in the video of the arrest - about "final request" - seem a little odd? And if (as claimed) "The picture above shows the scene of the fire in the far distance. Mitchell said he did not fly his drone any closer to the scene of the tragedy than that." then why was any complaint made anyway? The police certainly seemed to be taking the residents complaints seriously.

I'll stand by what I said earlier - the devil's in the detail, and without knowing that it's wrong to draw too many conclusions.

In principle, Rob, I agree when you say "One thing is clear, they acted irresponsibly when they grabbed the controller from the operators hands......" - but to play Devil's Advocate, then what if he had been told to stop before and had tried stalling for time with the same excuse? ("You've got to let me land safely!") IF such happened, then they may have just decided he wasn't going to do the same thing again. As I said before, I'm not drawing too many conclusions without knowing the full detail.

January 8th, 2015, 03:22 PM	#31
Rob Cantwell Major Player Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Tipperary, Ireland Posts: 624	Re: Drone Pilot arrested whilst drone in air Hi Roger, no offence taken, I do understand that police face lots of challenging and difficult situations every day, but I also believe that they also are duty bound to uphold the law especially as it impacts on them, in the video of Mr. Mitchell's arrest they havent exactly covered themselves in glory, it could be even argued that they might have been causing a breach of the peace! One thing is clear, they acted irresponsibly when they grabbed the controller from the operators hands, it might have been a different story had the drone, during the struggle, been brought down on top of someone or vehicle or whatever. From a moral/ethical standpoint - I would agree that filming this sort of thing is somewhat distasteful and not a newsworthy item. Of course, poor morals aren't against the law. :-) __________________ http://www.robertcantwell.com

January 9th, 2015, 12:55 PM	#32
David Heath Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,699	Re: Drone Pilot arrested whilst drone in air Rob - reading the report from your earlier post, there seem to be a lot of queries between what the operator says happened, and some of the other evidence. Most notably if all he had done was introduce himself to the police, wait, then take off without any further word (as he claims), then the officers first words in the video of the arrest - about "final request" - seem a little odd? And if (as claimed) "The picture above shows the scene of the fire in the far distance. Mitchell said he did not fly his drone any closer to the scene of the tragedy than that." then why was any complaint made anyway? The police certainly seemed to be taking the residents complaints seriously. I'll stand by what I said earlier - the devil's in the detail, and without knowing that it's wrong to draw too many conclusions. In principle, Rob, I agree when you say "One thing is clear, they acted irresponsibly when they grabbed the controller from the operators hands......" - but to play Devil's Advocate, then what if he had been told to stop before and had tried stalling for time with the same excuse? ("You've got to let me land safely!") IF such happened, then they may have just decided he wasn't going to do the same thing again. As I said before, I'm not drawing too many conclusions without knowing the full detail.