Speaking as a person with a pilot's certificate in my wallet, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who point lasers at aircraft and then get arrested.

I'm usually howling about excesses of law enforcement in the course of my travels, but not this time.

What non-pilots don't realize is that even at power levels low enough to avoid damaging someone's retina (which might be lower than you think they'd have to be), a laser hitting a cockpit windscreen at night can be incredibly disorienting to pilots attempting to operate aircraft.

Because of the coherence of the light, shining a laser at anyone's eyes can cause irreparable damage surprisingly quickly. Moreover, this laser was attached to a gun. Anyone who sees a laser site attached to a gun is going to instinctively think "threat". As much as I'm probably going to get "shot down" in this forum for saying this, I'm going to give the law enforcement folks a little leeway until I hear a little more detail on this story. Moreover, if helicopters were brought in, there must have been prior cause for thinking "threat". It may have been an overreaction, but an underreaction in that case may get the cop dead.

My local talk show host is an ex-cop. While he got out of police work 20 years ago, he said this AM that he would have shrugged given what has happened in the last year. I think that most cops must be considering that as well.