Can Serve Half Concurrently With Separate Sentence

Jordan Dwayne Jackson, 36, of Houston, Texas, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for pointing a laser at a Houston Police Department helicopter in 2021. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal ordered that Jackson spend at least half that time in federal prison, and the other half can be served concurrently with his 18-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault for which he was convicted in July 2024.

Jackson initially faced two charges of aiming a laser at aircraft on November 11, 2021. The first incident involved the police helicopter and the second was for pointing the laser at a Southwest Airlines flight near Houston Hobby Airport.

In a plea agreement entered in February 2025, Jackson pleaded guilty to the police helicopter laser strike while the government dropped the charge involving the Southwest flight.

Most people know by now that aiming a laser at aircraft is a federal crime, and this incident is a rare example of a person being tried, convicted, and sentenced for the crime. The FAA said that in 2024, 543 laser strikes were reported by pilots over Houston, the most of any city in the country according to the agency’s database.

Hobby Airport officials reported that four aircraft had been struck by a green laser the night of November 11, 2021, as noted in court documents. When a police helicopter was dispatched to attempt to locate the laser, it too was subsequently struck by the laser as it flew near the Texas Southern University campus.

Jackson was identified and arrested, accused of carrying two green lasers.

FMI:  www.faa.gov/