Fourth of July Drone Attack

An aerial drone landed in the middle of the West Martello in the middle of the Garden Club’s Fourth of July fireworks party there. I landed right on member Bob Hans, who got cuts on his arm and leg trying to disengage it from him and stop it from hurting anyone else.

The drone had been visible for the previous hour. At first, member Cynthia Edwards thought it was a helicopter. “But it made such extreme maneuvers, no helicopter could stop, hover, and take off in a different direction so quickly.,” she remembered. The green and purple lights were also no match for regular aircraft.

 

“I don’t like it,” said Kim Gordon. The members watching generally agreed that there was something spooky about a drone hovering above us. Hazel Hans wondered how high it was, when we saw it above the fireworks, once they finally started at 9:54 pm, even later than last year’s tardy performance.

 

Everyone was enjoying the spectacle until around 10:05 when an angry buzzing super-mosquito landed on Bob. No, not a mosquito, but a small plastic intensely whirring drone aircraft, about two feet across. Members got a chair leg wedged in it to disable it.

 

Then the owner appeared on the beach below Martello. He claimed it, and wanted it back. A member went to meet him at the front of the locked gates for the private party for volunteers. He gave his driver’s license, saying where he worked and that he had insurance.

 

Members took pictures of the drone, Bob’s injuries, and the drone owner’s driver’s license. The members in good faith took the driver’s license back to the drone owner and showed him his drone. But while waiting for the police, who never responded to the call for a police report, he managed to grab most of his drone through the gate while the members were waiting in vain for police who never came.

During the 45 minutes members waited, two police cars were dealing with a homeless person at the White Street pier. Another two police cars were handling a guy barfing in his car right in front of the gate where the members were waiting, and who refused to have anything to do with us.

 

Two stories: private sector drones, owned by an individual who wanted to take pictures of the fireworks he could sell, and a police department who doesn’t think a man bleeding from an out-of-control drone is as important as a homeless man or a drunk. Chief Lee, what’s your call? After 45 minutes, everyone finally cave up on our Key West Police department and left.

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