Minor charges and being mentioned, but I think the important thing is to hit these attention whores in the wallet:
The bizarre flight of a home-made helium balloon, thought to have a 6-year-old boy aboard, was a hoax and publicity stunt, a Colorado sheriff said on Sunday."It has been determined that this is a hoax, that it was a publicity stunt and we believe we have evidence at this point to indicate that this was a publicity stunt in hopes to better market themselves for a reality show," Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden told reporters at a press conference.
He said the family faced several charges.
The sight of the flyaway balloon on live television gripped U.S. viewers for more than two hours on Thursday as the silver flying saucer-shaped contraption raced across the Colorado sky, tracked by U.S. National Guard helicopters before the boy, Falcon Heene, was found alive and well in his attic.
Questions were raised after Falcon was asked during an interview on CNN why he had stayed in hiding so long when family members and other searchers were desperately calling his name.
He responded: "You guys (his parents) said that, um, we did this for a show."
Alderden said the parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, could face charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, filing a false report with authorities and with attempting to influence a public servant.
Alderden had previously said the couple would face only misdemeanor charges in the incident.
The Heene family has appeared on the ABC television reality show "Wife Swap" in which families swap mothers to deal with family problems.
Richard Heene has emphatically denied that the incident was a hoax and Alderden initially said that he believed him, largely dismissing skepticism in the media.
Bill the Heenes for the cost of the search. Also recommended: tether the wayward Richard and Mayumi to the next departing space shuttle. They'd get their largest audience ever.
Posted by floridacracker at October 18, 2009 01:43 PMThey probably will get a show out of this..
I kind of figured that youngin' was hiding somewhere..it happened all the time when I was a kid.
The assault team that went after the balloon was a little over the top if you ask me..but that's par for the course it seems these days.
Some kid gets stuck in a tree or something, or God
forbid, a cat...(notice how no dogs ever get stuck in trees???) and they send half the county out.
Seems excessive to me, to send several helicopters, three or four ambulances, twenty squad trucks... WTF for a balloon ? ? If anything, FOX, CNN, and the other channel's should get on the Obama finance plan, and be forced to pay for the expenses..they made a fortune off the deal.
Posted by: csason at October 18, 2009 04:14 PMFalcon's parents are in for a reality show they didn't bargain for.
I'll enjoy watching.
You know what I keep thinking about this whole thing? All I can think of is thank goodness none of those choppers crashed. You hear about rescue helicopters going down pretty often, and it's terrible enough when they do so in the course of responding to an actual emergency.
Posted by: Starla Darling at October 19, 2009 08:36 AM...Falcon...
I recall that character in Rich Man, Poor Man..I think it was, named Falconi ?
What are the other boys names.. Hawk and Osprey ??
I thought if you named your kid Hitler or Falcon they took it away from you, just for that.. I think they should also take them away if you name them after shampoo or cars.
This morning one of the 'journalists'..*fart*
(excuse me) I was listening to on my brainwash unit said "I invested a lot of emotional time in this story, as did millions of others" ..which Is the same as saying "I got all worked up for nothing"
Whatever it is we've turned into is pretty sad...
Why didn't they just use a pellet rifle, or rubber bullets to drop it ?? They were the idiots chasing that thing all over the country like it was a damn ufo or some crap.
Posted by: csason at October 19, 2009 08:41 AMThe other boys are Ryo and Bradford. I'm thinking Ryo is probably a Japanese name; the mother appears to be Japanese. Wonder how Bradford drew the straw for the stuffy yuppie name?
The family in NJ or PA who had kids named Hitler and Aryan Nation and such did not have them taken away for their names alone. After all, the kids had had those names for years. Anyway, if that was really done, I would think I'd have been taken away at birth myself. I mean, Starla?! And my middle name is Roxanne, after a prostitute in a Police song, no less.
And they couldn't shoot down the balloon because they didn't know then what they know now, they're only as good as the information they have right then to work with, and at the time the info was the kid was in the basket/box thing under the balloon. There's plenty of time for should-have and ought-to-have after, but while the "emergency" is going on, what are they supposed to do? They have a balloon looking thing flying around, they don't know where the kid is, his family thinks he's in the balloon, so what else can they do?
Though I agree, nobody said for anybody to get ovelry emotional about it. I mean, I watched the story on TV and hoped he was all right, but he's a total stranger to me, his family are total strangers to me, what right do I have to invest myself in it all? Even if it was genuine? Be glad he isn't hurt, be sorry if he is, but that's as far as it goes.
And I don't know why the journalists are complaining about having their emotions invested in it. They got a big story to work on, after all, and that's what any one of them hopes for.
csason,
Here's hoping they saved the rubber bullets and pellets for the kid's father. In fact, that could be a reality show I might actually watch.
Posted by: tfhr at October 19, 2009 10:31 AMThat's why I said rubber bullets or pellets, Starla Roxanne..if one happened to graze him, it wouldn't be life threatening.
They were all dumbfounded..and scared of getting sued, and that's part of our problem.
As for the Adolf kid, they never gave another reason, other than the name, from what I recall.
Dmn you sure do like to drive the ambulance for whomever I direct fire at..did I piss you off ?
Posted by: csason at October 19, 2009 01:25 PMNo, just pointing things out that you might have overlooked in your rush to be in at the kill. Remember, we didn't know this thing was a fake while it was playing out. We're (us, the news people, the police, FAA, etc) are only as good as the information we have to work with at a given time. The story itself is not all that far-fetched: if you were six years old and your family was building some flying-saucer-looking balloon, wouldn't you be sorely tempted to at least sit in the basket/box? And if your brother was sitting in that box, wouldn't you also be sorely tempted to see where he would go? A good hoax starts with someething that's believable, after all.
And I'm not talking about the bullets doing damage: if the balloon was shot down, and didn't land softly the way it did, and somebody'd been on board, they'd have been pretty badly busted up. Again, operating only on info available at the time.