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Brooklyn Heights Residents Freaked Out By Peeping Drone
By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 15, 2015
Modified Aug 15, 2015
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 15, 2015
Modified Aug 15, 2015
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A very curious drone freaked out residents around Brooklyn Heights on Thursday after it showed up outside an office building: "We were in our office, it's a corner office bordered by two sets of windows—our boss was like 'oh my gosh, there's a drone outside the window', so we all gathered around," witness Becca Giles told ABC. Maybe it was looking for Craig's mom?
The close encounter with the drone happened Thursday; workers at EBrooklyn Media were the first to notice the drone outside the 30th-floor office windows at 16 Court St. in Brooklyn Heights. At first, EBrooklyn Media business manager Alice Peters thought it was a toy, she told Brooklyn Eagle: “Then I saw the camera piece and I thought ‘That’s a little freaky.’ You don’t know what they’re capturing with their cameras...it's an invasion of privacy."
It later turned out that the drone belonged to a real estate architect doing work at 189 Montague St., which is scheduled to be demolished. "He was using it to take photos for his architectural work," Sgt. Brendan Ryan told the Brooklyn Eagle. The drone was confiscated, and the operator was given a criminal court summons for breaking Public Safety Law 10-126, which covers "aviation in and over the city."
According to NBC, federal law prohibits drones "from flying higher than 400 feet and requires drone operators to get permission before flying their devices within five miles of an airport," not that that's stopped some people from doing so.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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