Man Arrested on Suspicion of Pointing Laser Beam at CHP Helicopter
Photo: Scene of sideshow from the air (CHP)
OAKLAND – A suspect was arrested for allegedly targeting an officer with a laser beam during one of several raucous Sunday morning sideshows, where participants set off fireworks, and there were reports of onlookers firing gunshots into the air.
The California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate Division Air Operations sent a helicopter aloft at 2:18 a.m. to assist the Oakland Police Department, which was responding to multiple sideshows in East Oakland on January 28.
Tires were screeching and the air thick with smoke at one of the largest sideshows involving as many as 200 vehicles, when someone on the ground pointed a potentially blinding laser beam at a CHP helicopter—monitoring the mayhem on the city’s streets below.
Officers in the helicopter saw approximately 50 vehicles leave one of the sideshows at 42nd Avenue near Interstate 880, and then drive towards another sideshow occurring near 54th Avenue and International Boulevard.
While CHP officers in the helicopter were monitoring the vehicles near International Boulevard, someone in the crowd below pointed a green laser directly at their helicopter.
CHP officers tracked the person responsible for the laser beam. They watched him get into a white sedan and drive away, which enabled officers on the ground to locate the suspect.
The suspect, 24-year-old Pittsburg resident, Ponciano Bojorquez was arrested on multiple charges, and booked in county jail with his bail was set at $110,000.
Borjorquez is charged with discharging a laser at an aircraft, pointing a laser scope in a threatening manner to cause fear or harm, exhibiting a firearm in the presence of a police officer, aiming or pointing a laser at an officer, and aiding or abetting a sideshow exhibition.
