Clark Gable's Grandson Gets 10 Days in Jail for Pointing Laser at LAPD Helicopter

Clark Gable's 23-year-old grandson was sentenced Thursday to 10 days behind bars for pointing a laser at a Los Angeles Police Department helicopter flying over Hollywood Boulevard.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Horwitz gave Clark James Gable of Canoga Park credit for one day already served and also placed him on three years of formal probation.

In exchange for his guilty plea last month to the felony count of discharge of a laser at an occupied aircraft, Deputy District Attorney Holly Harpham asked that two additional felony charges of discharge of a laser and one count of assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury be dismissed.

The late Gone With the Wind star's namesake, who was 22 at the time of the incident, admitted pointing a green laser at an LAPD helicopter that was flying 800 feet above Hollywood Boulevard shortly after 10 p.m. July 28.

The 52-milliwatt laser light—which has a range of more than 1,000 feet in altitude—obstructed the vision of two LAPD officers in the helicopter, Harpham said.

Officers later found that the laser beam had come from a small red car. The vehicle in which Gable was riding was stopped at Highland Avenue and Franklin Place, where he was arrested.

Prosecutors declined to file charges against the car's driver, Maximilian Anderson, citing insufficient evidence that the 23-year-old man knew the laser was being pointed at the helicopter.

"It was a misunderstanding, you know, people make mistakes and you learn from them," Gable told local TV station KCAL9 after his arrest. "[The laser] was just a gift that I got, and people make mistakes and that's the bottom line. I'm going to learn from it and hopefully others will."