Mailman in Capitol gyrocopter landing charged and ordered to home detention

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/16/mailman-gyrocopter-capitol-charged-violating-airspace

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Related: Special delivery: Florida mailman lands gyrocopter on Capitol lawn

The mailman who landed a gyrocopter outside the US Capitol on Wednesday, in an attempt to deliver letters of protest about political campaign funding, appeared in court on Thursday. Doug Hughes, 61, was charged with violating national defence airspace.

The postal worker from Ruskin, Florida, spent the night in jail after he flew his tiny open-sided aircraft close to the White House and landed it on the lawn of the Capitol building. He was immediately arrested. On Thursday, he appeared in US district court in Washington.

Hughes was released after the hearing, on condition that he observe home detention until his next court date in the capital city, on 8 May.

He was ordered to surrender his passport and banned from flying any aircraft, and must report to the authorities once a week. He was also charged with operating an unregistered aircraft.

After Hughes’s landing on Wednesday, questions arose about such a breach in security so close to the centre of government. Politicians from both sides of the aisle protested; one called the incident a “dangerous gap” in security in the airspace around Washington.

Homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson said Hughes “apparently literally flew in under the radar”.

Hughes’s best friend, fellow mailman Mike Shanahan of Apollo Beach, Florida, told the Guardian he was proud of his friend, though at the same time very relieved he had not been shot down. Shanahan said he was now worried for his friend.

“They didn’t kill him, and that’s good,” Shanahan, 65, told the Guardian on Thursday. “He wanted to do something spectacular because he felt so strongly about this issue. I’m proud of him, what he did was extremely patriotic, it was a little bit dumb, too, but it was very brave.”

Shanahan said he had no idea until after his friend took off whether Hughes would actually go through with the idea that they had been discussing for more than two years. Shanahan said he was not involved with Hughes’s specific plan of action on Wednesday and had told his friend it was too dangerous to carry out.

“He realized he could get killed but it was too important to him,” he said. “He’s not crazy – he’s tenacious, but he is not crazy.”

Shanahan said Hughes’s son killed himself almost three years ago, “just because he was pissed off at his girlfriend”. Shanahan said Hughes had become determined not to stay silent on an issue about which he felt very strongly.

Hughes carried letters in his gyrocopter to deliver to members of Congress in protest over campaign finance laws – or, as Shanahan put it, “the lack of them”.

He had been especially angered by the supreme court decision in 2010 that political campaign contributions were the equivalent of free speech and should not be limited by regulation, Shanahan said.

“Doug was trying to get our democracy back,” he said.

Johnson said he was “deeply concerned” by the incident but added it was too soon to say whether it should prompt changes in security procedures. Capitol police were investigating; requests for comment were not returned.

Johnson said: “I want to know all the facts before I reach an assessment of what can and should be done about gyrocopters in the future.”

Elijah Cummings, the senior Democrat on the House oversight and government reform committee, who said he had spoken with the head of the secret service, said the incident exposed a “very dangerous gap” in security of airspace in the capital.

“I don’t want people to get a message that they can just land anywhere,” Cummings said. “Suppose there was a bomb or an explosive device on that air vehicle? That could have been a major catastrophe.”

Lawmakers are also furious that the secret service knew about Hughes and his idea but did not prevent it.

“My concerns are the prior notice that he was going to do this and the lack of response,” said the Republican Michael McCaul, chairman of the House homeland security committee.

Hughes owned the gyrocopter but did not buy it for the purpose of carrying out Wednesday’s plan, Shanahan said, adding that Hughes began taking lessons to fly it before it dawned on him that it would offer a unique way to get his message across.

Hughes towed the aircraft on a trailer to Pennsylvania, where he took off on Wednesday from a small airport. After broadcasting a live-stream video as he flew, he landed on the Capitol lawn around 90 minutes later, Shanahan said.

Shanahan said that when he saw on TV that Hughes had put a United States Postal Service decal on the tail of his aircraft, his reaction was “Oh, crap”, out of fear that Hughes risked losing his job in addition to possible incarceration.

Shanahan said both he and Hughes had been interviewed by secret service agents a year or more ago, after a relative of Hughes tipped off the authorities.

The secret service reportedly confirmed they had interviewed Hughes in the fall of 2013 and had thoroughly investigated him. The Guardian is seeking comment from the secret service.

On Wednesday the Tampa Bay Times published the story of Hughes’s plan and reasoning, with lengthy interviews conducted prior to the event, on its website around 15 minutes after he took off in his gyrocopter. The newspaper then posted about it on social media. By then, Hughes’s own live video was unfolding online.

Managing editor Jennifer Orsi told the Guardian on Thursday that the secret service contacted her after the event with a request to speak to the reporter who covered the story, and the agents have been referred to the newspaper’s attorney.

“I do not have any knowledge that we are under investigation,” she said.

On Wednesday the newspaper contacted the secret service and Capitol police around 1pm, 30 minutes before Hughes landed, she said, to ask whether they were aware that he was approaching Washington, and to seek comment.

Orsi said there had been lengthy discussions at the newspaper about how to handle any communication with the authorities about the “unusual” story.

“We are comfortable with how we handled it,” she told the Guardian, adding that the company was not responsible for Hughes’s actions.

“I was not confident that he was not going to be shot down,” she said. “I frankly was more confident that he was never going to get off the ground. I did not know what was going to happen. Our job was not to control the actions of anyone, our job was to report on people’s actions.”