KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that a Kansas City, Mo., man has been sentenced in federal court for aiming his laser pointer at a Kansas City, Mo, Police Department helicopter.
Jordan Clarence Rogers, 26, of Kansas City, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, to three years in federal prison without parole.
Rogers, who pleaded guilty on Sept. 8, 2016, admitted that he aimed the beam of a laser pointer at a Kansas City, Mo., Police Department helicopter on Oct. 8, 2013. Rogers struck the helicopter three times with a green laser light. He twice hit the eye of one of the pilots, causing eye strain that lasted for hours after the incident.
In sentencing Rogers, the court found that he recklessly endangered the safety of an aircraft, which was flying over a residential neighborhood. The government, in a sentencing memorandum to the court, described Rogers’s conduct as “another example of the criminally antisocial behavior that (his) extensive criminal history shows to be part of his daily life.”
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian P. Casey. It was investigated by the FBI.