Ghetto Bird Buzzes Bushwick at 1am
If I didn’t have to work till 1am most nights anyhow, I would have been awaken by this ridiculously low-flying NYPD chopper, as I’m sure many of my neighbors were. I called 311 just to ask what was going on — I’m not so presumptuous as to expect the police to land the chopper because someone complained about noise — and the operator simply said the relevant bureaucracy is now closed, and I need to call back during normal business hours, and tank you fah cawling da city of new ymmm…*click* Just as I was grumbling that my a/c wouldn’t drown out the noise, the chopper zipped off into the night. There’s no need for this clip to be a whole 38 seconds long, but I thought maybe they were going to do something, since they had been circling my block for 20 minutes.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I see this in Harlem all the time, but last night was my first Bushwick-chopper experience. I was really surprised by how long they circled the neighborhood, and was aggravated by trying to sleep through this knowing I had to get up at 6 this morning. The duration of the pursuit would make me guess they didn’t catch whoever they were looking for.
June 24th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Haha! I was feeling all nice and peaceful meditating out on my fire-escape when the helicopter zoomed on in and interrupted. It was kind of fascinating to have it hanging around pretty much directly overhead, and I was and am certainly curious as to what was going on. I almost thought I saw other lights (from cars..police?) coming from the direction of Troutman and Central-ish.. But I’m short (so I couldn’t see over the buildings), and I was sans glasses (so everything was blurry).
June 24th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
yeah, wtf. that was crazy. I’ve seen/heard circling birds before but that was lower than average. Kinda freaked me out too cuz they kept shining light into my backyard. I got all paranoid that a miscreant was fence hopping and would try to break in to hide from the chopper coppers.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I was awoken, not by the chopper, but by my buzzer. It was the police asking to come into my building. They just rushed by me when I opened the door and ran up to the top floor. Then they were gone. I didn’t read anything about it - and I also saw the chopper shining the light on my backyard too.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:01 am
I wasn’t awoken, but I certainly did notice. . .my roommates and I were up on our rooftop drinking some wine and the chopper circled around about 4 times, with the searchlight catching our roof a few times. It was a little intimidating and we all wondered what was going on that they busted out a helicopter for. And yes, we also saw some flashing lights on the ground over by the morgan stop.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Hah! I have one of these… after seeing it and hearing it one time 3 days and night straight i had to record it because i couldnt believe how low it was flying. i’ve gotten used to it now… i almost miss it when it’s not there…
here’s mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYH4ziEZcIM
June 25th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
where do you all live where they were shining lights in your backyard? out in my backyard, i felt like the chopper was hovering directly overhead which i am sure was simply a misperception on my part. i assumed that someone was running on foot and, as i enjoyed the breeze through my open back door, had similar thoughts of a fence jumper using my apartment as a temporary hideout. i live on willoughby between evergreen and central. is that nearby?
June 25th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Well I live near you on Central, and I’d assume a lot of folks posting about this live nearby. Obviously we have to take into account that a helicopter can cover a whole lot of ground really quickly - that’s why they put them to use for high-speed chases, or cases where suspects have fled into hard-to-reach areas like backyards. Even if it was only circling a radius of a few blocks there could still be thousands of residents who felt that this was directly overhead.
June 25th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
..and 2 days later we have another ghetto bird