You probably noticed that it's been unseasonably pleasant the past few days. Short-sleeve picnic weather. Leave-the-screen-door-open weather. Or, if you prefer, pantsless-laser-pointing weather.
Count 22-year-old Kenneth Santodomingo as the leader of that last group. He was arrested just after 4 a.m. today after confessing to shining a green laser pointer at a circling police helicopter.
According to police, DPD Air 1 was searching the Pleasant Grove area for a fleeing car full of burglars when its windshield was flooded by green light. This happened several more times before officers pinpointed the source of the light as a backyard in the 7700 block of Lake June Road.
Officers on the ground knocked on the front door of the house and were greeted by Santodomingo, clad only in "dark blue short-style underwear," who told them to go around to the back since he couldn't open the burglar bars.
At first, Santodomingo told officers he knew nothing about the green light. When officers pressed, he relented, fetching a laser pointer from the front pocket of a nearby suitcase and confessing that it had been him. "I wanted to see how far it would go," he explained.
He would have been better picking a ground-based target. Shining a laser at an aircraft is a federal crime that carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He was taken to Dallas County Jail, where he was apparently allowed to dress before taking his mug shot.
