{"id":109433,"date":"2011-06-28T13:15:11","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T08:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=109433"},"modified":"2011-06-28T13:29:40","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T08:29:40","slug":"armenian-american-arrested-for-allegedly-flashing-laser-at-police-helicopter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/06\/28\/armenian-american-arrested-for-allegedly-flashing-laser-at-police-helicopter.html","title":{"rendered":"Armenian-American Arrested for Allegedly Flashing Laser at Police Helicopter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A 19-year-old Glendale man was arrested late Friday after he allegedly flashed a green laser device at a police helicopter, officials said, <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.glendalenewspress.com\/2011-06-27\/news\/tn-gnp-0628-laser_1_green-laser-high-powered-laser-laser-pointing\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">reports the Glendale News-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Narek Karapetyan (pictured) was taken into custody about 11:15 pm after shining the laser twice at a Glendale and Burbank police aircrew, Sgt. Steve Robertson, the pilot, said.<\/p>\n<p>The arrest is the second of its kind this month in Glendale, in addition to a similar incident in Burbank.<\/p>\n<p>Shining a high-powered laser at an aircraft can damage a pilot\u2019s eyes or cause temporary blindness.<\/p>\n<p>In the incident Friday night, Robertson was piloting the aircraft about 9:15 pm in skies above Glenoaks Boulevard when the green laser struck his eyes. His corneas were severely burned in a similar incident 15 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>He and a Burbank police co-pilot pinpointed the laser near Hoover High School. They checked the area, but couldn\u2019t find anyone, so continued on their patrol.<\/p>\n<p>About 45 minutes later, they were preparing to land when the Burbank officer was hit again by the laser, Robertson said.<\/p>\n<p>They switched to infrared equipment and flew to the area around Hoover High School, where he said they spotted a group of men next to a car.<\/p>\n<p>Robertson immediately called for patrol cars to respond to the area, where they arrested Karapetyan, who allegedly was seen hiding the laser behind a nearby tree.<\/p>\n<p>Karapetyan told police that he flashed the laser, but denied pointing it directly at the aircrew, Robertson said.<\/p>\n<p>If convicted, Karapetyan could face stiff civil penalties.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo of Narek Karapetyan courtesy of the Glendale Police Department.<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Narek Karapetyan was taken into custody about 11:15 pm after shining the laser twice at a Glendale and&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[17314,28902,21033,28901,28900],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}