A man dies after allegedly aiming a green laser and then opening fire on a police helicopter

In the United States of 2023, dumb criminals and skyrocketing crime are unfortunately nothing new.

In Detroit, however, this week they banded together in a deeply depressing fashion that resulted in Michigan State Police soldiers shooting and killing a gunman living in an abandoned home.

Why? Because he allegedly pointed a laser at a police helicopter and then fired at it.

WXYZ-TV reported that the man “locked himself on the second floor of the house where the shots were fired.”

It is not clear why the 33-year-old, who has not been named, targeted the helicopter, according to the New York Post. It is also unclear if the police were looking for him.

What is known is that the helicopter was circling the west side of Detroit at approximately 8:30 p.m. Tuesday when the incident occurred.

“Someone hit us with a green laser on the back of the house, on the top window,” the helicopter pilot can be heard speaking in footage of the incident.

Then the door of the house opened and the suspect came out, and it was seen that he was pointing something at the helicopter.

“He might be armed. He looks like he’s holding a long gun pointed at us right now,” the pilot continued. Yes, he’s shooting at us right now.

Police said that when they approached the house from the ground, the suspect opened fire on them. State soldiers returned fire, killing him.

The two officers who shot the suspect are on leave pending investigation. Names are not called.

As for the officers in the helicopter, neither they nor the plane itself were injured.

Michigan State Police Lieutenant Michael Shaw told reporters that officers “previously cleared the house for security purposes and found several caches of weapons and ammunition in the house, as if it was set up for some kind of ambush, security or something.”

Just to be clear, aiming a laser at a police plane – or any other aircraft, for that matter – is already enough to get you in a lot of trouble.

As ABC News notes after a similar incident with a Customs and Border Protection helicopter hovering over Detroit in 2020, shining a laser into the cockpit of an aircraft is a federal crime.

If charged and convicted to the fullest extent of the law, those found guilty could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Of course aiming a laser at a police helicopter is not as manic as pointing a gun at said helicopter and then shooting at it and then shooting at the cops who subsequently arrive to make an arrest.

In this case, what allegedly happened here almost always ends with the suspect dying.

It’s tragic. Marvelous? No. After all, we live in America, where criminals are so stupid and arrogant that they try to sell stolen cars through Facebook. The phenomenon is gloomy funny, perverted in its own way.

Meanwhile, this is just a depressing sign of how crime is out of control in this country, especially in large cities like Detroit, run by Democrats.