About 15 minutes later, a Bakersfield Police Department patrol car arrived at the locked gate. Two officers stepped out and approached the locked fence. One, officer Eric Celedon, called out to Bowser.

“Do you know why we are here?”

Bowser knew. They were here because he’d hit the helicopter with the laser, but Bowser tried to explain it away. He was merely testing the laser and didn’t mean to cause any harm, he said.

As the two talked, Bowser could hear Celedon’s shoulder-mounted radio blaring. A voice, which he quickly figured out belonged to the helicopter pilot, pierced through an already tense situation: “I want that son of a bitch arrested! He’s going to jail! He about got me in a wreck!”

Celedon obliged. He arrested Bowser for violating California Penal Code 247.5, the part of the state criminal code that deals with laser strikes. He read Bowser his rights and began a short interview, as court records show:

Celedon: But you pointed it towards the helicopter? Bowser: Yes I guess I did. Celedon: What do you mean you guess? Either you did or you didn’t. Bowser: I did but I never seen it hit the helicopter. You know I didn’t even know if it was, the battery was going weak. You know, and... Celedon:... So you didn't, but you pointed it at the helicopter, you just didn’t know you hit it? Was that it? Bowser: Um, yes I didn’t know if the batteries were even strong enough to hit, actually hit it. Celedon: Oh OK. Bowser: And I wasn’t trying hurt, I didn't even know if that was a cop helicopter. I wasn’t trying to hurt nobody, you know what I mean?

Trouble

It may seem absurd that a tiny, pen-sized laser could become such a concern for authorities. But rest assured pilots do not take these situations lightly—they see lasers as a potentially dangerous nuisance. Many liken the experience to unexpectedly facing bright headlights on a dark country road. Officers have previously told Ars the experience can lead to temporary flash blindness.

“[It takes] five to seven seconds to refocus, depending on the strength,” Fresno Police Officer Ken Schneider told Ars in 2014. “I once took a direct hit to the eye and had a tingling irritation for four hours.”

The federal government takes such laser strikes seriously, too. The Department of Justice told Ars that more than 28,000 laser illumination incidents in the United States have been reported to the Federal Aviation Administration between 2011 and 2015. But as of 2014, only 134 arrests were made, and there were only 80 convictions.

This year, as of October 22, the FAA reported 5,564 incidents nationwide. That’s more than 22 laser strikes reported in the United States every day. Of those, Phoenix tops the list of most cases with 263. Bakersfield, by contrast, has just 34.

But in Bowser’s situation, he didn’t just fire the laser at a Kern County Sheriff’s Office helicopter. He did so in a part of the country where Assistant US Attorney Karen Escobar presides. Her federal district was responsible for more than 35 percent of the convictions noted above, and she has personally prosecuted 17 laser strike cases—far more than anyone else in the US. Escobar has never lost a laser case, either.

“I don’t know of crashes, but I do know of pilots that have suffered permanent disabilities from laser strikes,” Escobar told Ars.

Authorities are generally concerned that handheld lasers, which have been getting cheaper and more powerful in recent years and are openly sold on the Web, could be used by a terrorist or a criminal to bring down an aircraft. While no aircraft in American airspace has ever been brought down, much less forced to make an emergency landing due to a laser strike, there has been a concerted effort to identify and crackdown on those carrying out such strikes.

This, along with 18 US Code § 39A of course, is what Bowser had gotten himself into. Originally, he said the government wanted to charge him with attempted murder, terrorism, and other charges that ultimately were not filed. But with the laser strike, he decided to push his defense attorney to take the single count to trial, believing that it would be difficult to prove that he “knowingly” aimed the laser at the police helicopter.

"...but you did something."

After being arrested, Bowser posted bail and returned for his first court appearance days later. Initially, he was met with a surprise—state charges had been dropped. No explanation was given. As far as Bowser knew, he was free as a bird. With that out of the way, he and Wendy decided to move back to her home state of Arkansas.

Little did Bowser realize, however, federal authorities had started their investigation. They were searching for the motorhome and laser in question.

Bowser and Wendy sold their belongings at a yard sale and packed up for Arkansas in December 2014. But months later, in March 2015, Bowser heard that his aunt, his closest relative, had fallen ill. He had to come back to California if possible. Unable to afford the plane ticket on short notice, he bought a used car and began driving west. Somewhere outside of Amarillo, Texas, the car broke down. He decided to then rent a U-Haul truck to accommodate him, his stuff, and Bowser the pitbull.

After visiting his aunt, Bowser decided to drive to Bakersfield to return the truck. On his way, he pulled over at a rest stop near the town of Nipomo to walk his dog. Because large trucks are not usually on the road so late at night, a San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s deputy began questioning him. By coincidence, there had been a recent rash of drug shipments in the area.

When the deputy ran Bowser’s name in his computer, he came back with bad news—a sealed federal warrant dating to December 2014 had Bowser’s name on it. (According to Escobar, it had taken several weeks to file the warrant as federal authorities were trying to locate the motorhome, the laser, and Bowser himself.)

“I don’t know what you did, but you did something,” the deputy told Bowser. “I have to take you in.”

Bowser the dog was taken to a local animal shelter immediately and likely put down over time. Bowser the man was taken to the San Luis Obispo County Jail before being driven by FBI agents Erick Bach and Joshua Allan Nicholson to a federal detention center in Bakersfield.

There, while seated in the front passenger seat, Bowser gave the two men the same story he gave officer Celedon that fateful night: “I didn’t really comprehend that it was a helicopter until I turned my beam onto it, ‘til that laser hit it.”

On the ride back to Bakersfield, Bowser told the FBI agents that he had “mutilated” the laser while in Arkansas. He had initially told the Bakersfield Police that he had given it to Todd, but in fact he had given it to Wendy, who kept it and took it with them to Arkansas.

“I was chopping firewood, and I sat it right on top of the log I was splitting, and I chopped it right along with the log,” Bowser would later tell Ars.

By the end of the month, Bowser again insisted that he had not intentionally or “knowingly” struck the helicopter and invoked his right to a speedy trial. A date was set for June 20, 2015.