Longshot filter: Help me ID what I saw on the news as a little kid.

July 27, 2016 5:43 PM

When I was five, I got up out of bed to bug my parents about something, and accidentally saw some unusually violent footage on the evening news. The awfulness of it has stuck with me, even though I have no idea what it really was. This would have been around 1983 - 1984 (possibly troubling details within).

The footage included a person (I don't remember if it was a man or a woman) running away, and then being gunned down by soldiers. Shot in the back, if I remember right. They fell, and they didn't get back up. It was grainy and filmed from far off, but I don't think it was in black and white. I don't remember anything else, but I'm certain this was real and not a movie, both because of my parents' reaction to it, and because you just know, if you know what I mean.

When I got old enough to think about it, I thought that this must have been someone trying to get over the Berlin Wall. But when I went looking on the internet, I couldn't find any footage like that from the 1980's. And it seems very strange that it would have been shown on the news. So I guess my question is, older MeFi's, did the news networks make a habit of showing this when it happened? Is there some other event from that timeframe that I might be remembering, instead of the Berlin Wall?

posted by backwards compatible to Media & Arts (9 answers total)

Best answer: I do not remember this, but I remember some of the conflicts of the time, so I googled for those. Do you think it could be this? I'm still trying to see if there's footage of it, but given that he was a reporter, it seems like there could be.
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:08 PM on July 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There's a 30 minute documentary on youtube. I have not watched the whole thing but I did skim it a bit. I did not see anything exactly like you describe although there is plenty of grainy video footage of war stuff.
posted by RustyBrooks at 6:09 PM on July 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Is there any chance that you caught some of The Day After? I only ask because it it seared into my own memory from that time (I would have been 9). Maybe it's totally unrelated but I feel like it was a big scary TV event around that time.
posted by cabingirl at 6:21 PM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: In real news, 1983 had the invasion of Grenada.
posted by cabingirl at 6:24 PM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I remember the Grenada footage being unusually direct, too.
posted by scruss at 6:32 PM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: That would have been around the 15 year anniversary of the My Lai Massarce. Perhaps the news was doing a flashback to that?
posted by COD at 6:40 PM on July 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks all. That Dan Rather footage from the documentary brings back strong memories, but I don't see anything that actually fits my particular scene. Still, I think it was probably something from Grenada or El Salvador.
posted by backwards compatible at 2:52 AM on July 28, 2016

I remember a piece of a documentary on the CBC around that time about El Salvador or Nicaragua, that showed someone running down the street. The narrator said if the person wasn't indoors by the curfew, they would be shot. I don't remember someone getting shot, but I didn't see the whole show.
posted by cardboard at 5:18 AM on July 28, 2016

Keep in mind that no matter how sure you are that you are accurately remembering what you saw, you almost certainly are not. Which is just to say that there may not be a single bit of footage that matches your memory.
posted by OmieWise at 5:35 AM on July 28, 2016 [4 favorites]