On March 25, 2021, a grand jury in the Western District of Virginia indicted James Russell Weeks, III, for operating an unregistered unmanned aerial system (UAS).
The investigation revealed that on July 25, 2019, a UAS approached firefighters outside the Salem Fire Department and started harassing them. The firefighters went inside the fire station but the UAS followed them. The UAS eventually crashed inside the fire station and was seized by the Salem Police Department. Later that day, Weeks went to the police station and identified himself as the UAS’s owner.
The Salem Police Department investigated with the assistance of the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Transportation.