Attorney: Drone Flew Over Larkinville Concert

Jeff Preval, WGRZ

BUFFALO, NY – It’s certainly a bizarre story…

A local attorney tells us he believes a drone was flown over a concert last month at Larkin Square.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like that before in my life,” said attorney Daniel Ward, who says he and a few of his friends were in the crowd last month at a Larkin Square concert. Lance Diamond, a Buffalo performer was on stage. And Ward says there was something strange in the sky.

“Somewhere around 8 p.m., out of the sky appeared, it was dark it would appear to be a drone, it had two red lights and two green lights and it circled the crowd or the audience multiple times,” he said.

Ward says a small drone was flying about 200 feet over the crowd and was in the air for at least an hour.

“It seemed to be surveilling the audience and I don’t think that has any place in a democracy to have that kind of surveillance over the general public,” Ward said.

And then all of a sudden, according to Ward, the drone disappeared into the night.

“And it was swooping and swishing around I don’t know whether it was photographic or what it was doing,” he said.

Howard Zemsky, one of the operators of Larkin Square says drones aren’t part of the entertainment at Larkinville. And he can’t confirm if there was a drone in the air. A spokesperson with the City of Buffalo tells 2 On Your Side, the drone didn’t come from a fire station across the street.

And Diamond tells us no one from his band had a drone.

There is security at Larkinville for events and Zemsky tells 2 On Yourn Side that he will make sure security pays attention to not only activity on the ground, but also in the air. If someone is found to have flown a drone at the concert, they could be in trouble, while there’s no city ban on drones, there is a city ordinance that says no one can fly an aircraft less than 1,000 feet above an object.

The public safety committee with the Erie County Legislature may address this issue.Ward has been calling for an investigation into the matter for several weeks. It’s unclear if the legislature will actually investigate at this time.

http://www.wgrz.com/story/news/local/2014/10/17/larkinville-concert-drone/17455081/