As New Jersey is gripped with drone fever, another drone story has made headlines, this one stemming from an act of apparent pettiness dating back to August 2023, long before drones hovering over New Jersey in the dead of night made everyone wonder if we were being invaded by aliens.
Anthony Sapina, a 31-year-old from Atlantic City, was indicted by a grand jury on December 12 for criminal mischief and conspiracy offenses. Allegedly, Spina flew drones over commercial and residential pools to drop dye packs that turned the water a sickly greenish-yellow color.
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Why? That’s a great question! You’re very smart to have asked. Let’s hope the lawyers at Spina’s eventual trial are also very smart because so far, no source I’ve found has even addressed the motive for such a specific and seemingly random attack on various pools that have nothing in common, at least not on the surface. It seems no one even cares to toss in a line like “a motive was not provided.”
Dyeing pool water green is the kind of crime that makes you think, “Why?! Why would someone do this?!” The fact that there is no “why,” combined with the fact that no one seems to be asking “why” is maddening.
The dye packs were filled with common food dye you can get at your local grocer. All told, Spina’s drone dye attacks on pools caused at least 2,000 dollars in damage. Specifically, for two weeks in August 2023, prosecutors say that Spina flew a drone loaded with dye packs over a condominium complex in Atlantic City. It cost the complex a few thousand dollars to turn the pool blue again.
