A man in Long Island was arrested for shooting down a drone used to locate a missing dog Sunday, CBS New York reports.
It all began Feb. 21 when 18-month-old dog "Dezi" went missing hours after being placed in a new forever home in St. Jameson. Kato Ortiz of Port Jefferson, who had rehomed the pup after caring for her over the course of six months, explained he received a distressed call from Dez's new owners Thursday night.
"This new home she was in two or three hours – six hours maybe at tops," he recalled. "My wife got a phone call. This girl is crying hysterical. 'You gotta go out there. Dezi jumped the fence.'"
The following morning a call for help was posted to social media by the Missing Angels dog rescue group in Suffolk County. It was not long before the sightings began to pour in of Dez in a heavily wooded neighborhood and Missing Angels launched a drone over the area to aid the search. No one was expecting what happened next.
"So, once we put the drone in the air, within a few seconds, Teddy had said that, um, he thought a bird had hit the drone," Missing Angels group leader Lynne Fodale told CBS.
According to the news outlet, 26-year-old Gerard Chasteen saw the drone from his backyard on Rutherford Street and fired three shotgun shots, one of which hit the "Mavic 2 Zoom" device from the sky, leading to his arrest on charges of criminal mischief and weapons.
His family have apologized and Dez has since been found and returned to her owners but Ortiz said he doubted Chasteen shot down the drone intentionally.
"I think he felt threatened," he told CBS. "I really think if he knew the purpose of that drone he wouldn't have shot that."
Fodale agreed.
"The family are dog lovers, so they came over to us in the end and said 'we have two dogs, ourselves. Our son didn't know you were flying for a dog.'"
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