LA, televised car chases and OJ

January 27, 2006 1:40 PM

Almost twelve years ago, did you watch OJ's drive in the White Bronco? I didn't, but have a couple questions.

An article in the current New Yorker (not available online!) is "The Pursuit of Happiness" by Tad Friend, which concerns LA media coverage of high-speed chases. This is how it begins:

There was a brief historical period when the rest of America understood life in Los Angeles. It began at 5:56PM Pacific time on June 17, 1994 and ended two hours and fifty-one minutes later. Maybe you missed it. That was the night that OJ Simpson toured greater Los Angeles in a white Ford Bronco while holding a gun to his head.

If you watched this, and live elsewhere, do you agree? Afterwards, did you 'understand life in Los Angeles'? Or what did you think?

Myself, I lived in LA for seven years, but was forced to move away just after the Northridge earthquake in January 1994. Although I do have a TV, my life is cable-free; I rarely see any television and that night in June I was blissfully ignorant of the media circus swirling around my old commute along the 405. Due to my familiarity with the landscape I've always wanted to see what everybody else did, that night -- is there any ready source for this footage? I've only caught the occasional snippet, like on that dumb episode of "Seinfeld."

posted by Rash to media & arts (39 comments total)

It was simulcast by all three broadcast networks, although NBC had a box of it because they had live NBA playoffs. Yes, the country stopped to watch it - the combined feeds either came close or surpassed the ratings for the Super Bowl that year.

Each network had different audio feeds; I remember that CBS had a "friend" who was talking to OJ, begging him to stop and pull over. The idea was that OJ might - just might - be listening to the simulcast of the TV audio feed on the CBS radio affiliate in LA.

As for video of it, I haven't seen it for sale in a while. But it was.
posted by sachinag at 1:44 PM on January 27, 2006

Having only subsequently been to LA, I'm surprised at how little traffic OJ encountered.
posted by mookieproof at 1:44 PM on January 27, 2006

I had gotten married two days before that and was on my "honeymoon" driving across the country from CA to FL to go to a library conference and then introduce my new husband to my Mom who had never met him (long story there). We had dinner with my Dad the evening before who was like "the shit is really going to hit the fan with this one" and watched the slow-mo car chase from various rest stops, both live and then repeated on the news. I can't say that I learned much about Los Angeles. In fact I think I got the mistaken idea that the freeways were much emptier than they actually are.
posted by jessamyn at 1:50 PM on January 27, 2006

No traffic -- wasn't that because the police started closing off the entrance ramps ahead (like it was a presidential motorcade)? I thought, for that reason, the normal evening rush was really screwed up that day.
posted by Rash at 1:51 PM on January 27, 2006

I watched it, or at least parts of it, but I don't remember thinking, "Oh, now I understand life in LA." Probably more like, "Oh, thank God I don't live in LA."
posted by trip and a half at 1:52 PM on January 27, 2006

I don't remember what I was doing, but I remember I kept catching glimpses of it on various televisions.
My main thought was "Look, some idiot is running from the cops."
I will say, though, that all the people hanging banners and such from the overpasses only confirmed my latent East Coast suspicions that all Californians are nuts.
posted by madajb at 1:53 PM on January 27, 2006

Keep in mind that the timing put it squarely in the middle of prime time on the East Coast. It would be hard not to watch it if you were watching TV.
posted by smackfu at 2:00 PM on January 27, 2006

I was in New Jersey at the time and am in LA now. I didn't get it at the time, but having been here--and having seen a high-speed car chase twice a month since--I think I get "it" now: LA is about cars, cops, racism, heat and insanity.
posted by maxreax at 2:01 PM on January 27, 2006

I watched it and I still can't understand life in LA.
posted by caddis at 2:06 PM on January 27, 2006

From what I recall of that article, the author is discussing the LA obsession with watching police chases. By watching a police chase nationaly we all briefly understood what it was to live in LA and share this obsession.
posted by Shutter at 2:09 PM on January 27, 2006

I was working in the newsroom of a large Orange County newspaper. What some people don't know is that very early into the chase, the A.C. Cowlings left the freeway in an attempt to escape the police, then returned to the freeway when he saw there was no way.

In the process, he drove past the newspaper building. I thought the damn building was going to tip over, as everyone rushed to the windows to see the Bronco drive past and return to Interstate 5.

Seconds later, I witnessed the greatest two-person crash I've ever seen, as a photographer and a news assistant ran full speed into each other, attempting to navigate the same corner. Knocked themselves both silly. Film canisters and papers everywhere.

Ahh, good times.

In an ironic twist -- at the time, I lived right next to the cemetery where Nicole Brown Simpson is buried, and I was having a sandwich at a nearby deli when the first TV coverage came on -- the police saying he is now a fugitive. Robert Kardashian reading the "suicide note." I said to myself, "Wouldn't it be funny if, like, OJ just drove past this deli?" Turns out, while I was saying that, he was actually in the f'n neighborhood, attempting to get to the gravesite.

Months later, at a different paper, I was the editor of the "O.J. page," the daily coverage of the trial. As a result, I know way, way too much about the O.J. case. I can still hear Barry Scheck's voice grilling Dennis Fung. I can still hear Neufeld mispronouncing "Andrea Mazzola," his Brooklyn accent turning it into "Mazzoler."

I was the same age as Ron Goldman. He'd be turning 38 this year. O.J. is probably on a fairway somewhere, trying to decide between a 9-iron or the pitching wedge.
posted by frogan at 2:16 PM on January 27, 2006

I do remember -- I was about thirteen at the time and living in the suburbs of Chicago. My friend and I were watching 'The State' in her parents' living room. Her college-aged brother, home for the summer, came running into the room ordering us to turn on a network channel, because OJ "was being chased by the cops." He was much more excited/impressed/surprised than we were.

I think we got the TV back when OJ was back at his house (is that right?) -- or maybe they were showing footage of his house. At any rate, it was boring. I think when that happened we turned it back to MTV, but I feel like it was on most of the cable channels by then, too. Of course, 'The State' had ended by then.

'The State' was way better.
posted by penchant at 2:27 PM on January 27, 2006

Shutter is right.
posted by jjg at 2:28 PM on January 27, 2006

I didn't own a TV at the time, and I had the same disdain for celebrity-based "news" as I do now, so it basically had no effect on me. I know I'm a cultural outlier, though.
posted by matildaben at 2:41 PM on January 27, 2006

i remember that night well. i was visiting my hometown and had stopped in at an old high school friend's home to say hello... rather than reminisce, we instead spent several hours just watching the TV that night, awed by what was being played out live. it was something, but i'm not sure it helped me 'understand LA.'

the vivid image, that to me, seems to haunt my impressions of southern california is, instead, the helicopter shot of that truck driver getting hauled out of his rig at the florence and normandy intersection in torrence at the height of the king-trial riots. that was really something and the image of it has stuck with me ever since. i never go to LA without thinking about it.
posted by RockyChrysler at 2:46 PM on January 27, 2006

I was watching with my parents and grandparents at their rented house in Ocean City, NJ, before going to the Boardwalk for a night of rides and treats.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:55 PM on January 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

You don't want to see all the footage: It all looks exactly like the 10 second snippet you've already seen. A bronco from above, with empty freeway on both sides. For hours.
posted by JekPorkins at 3:26 PM on January 27, 2006

CNN has QuickTime videos of the chase (I didn't watch them, so I don't know if it's the whole thing).

Transcript of his phone call with the cops during the chase.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:33 PM on January 27, 2006

I kept watching and watching, but only because whatever show I was watching that got interrupted was a mystery/drama thing, and I was waiting for it to turn back so I could see the ending. I don't remember what the show was; only that one of the clues came from a parrot (present at the crime) repeating something.

I didn't even know who OJ was, so I thought it was bullshit they interrupted my tv for some lame "chase" that was way slower than half the chases you see on COPS.
posted by neda at 3:53 PM on January 27, 2006

For some reason, the small Texas town I lived in at the time carried KTLA on basic cable. We watched the trial daily after work (being two hours behind the west coast, a lot of it was still on by then).

After that whole thing was said and done, we'd repeat the after-work ritual, except with whatever car chase they were showing live on KTLA that day...and there was one almost daily. So for me it wasn't the OJ chase per se (I was on a flight when it was going on), but the subsequent frequency of helicopter-view car chases involving less famous people.
posted by First Post at 4:04 PM on January 27, 2006

I didn't own a TV at the time, and I had the same disdain for celebrity-based "news" as I do now, so it basically had no effect on me. I know I'm a cultural outlier, though.

I didn't understand it either, till I moved to LA and, like everyone else, became fascinated with police chases. Part of it is the sight of empty LA freeways - part of our worship of cars and car culture is an obsession with the stark beauty of freeways.
posted by muddgirl at 4:12 PM on January 27, 2006

Another vote for incredibly boring video. But the whole gun to the head thing reminded me of that scene from Mel Brooks "Blazing Saddles" where the sherriff (acting as his own hostage) is holding the lynch mob at bay by threatening to shoot himself .
posted by paulsc at 4:13 PM on January 27, 2006

I third this, Shutter was correct. The author is merely referring to the LA obsession with televised police chases. Before OJ, this was not something the rest of the country experienced.
posted by MrZero at 4:14 PM on January 27, 2006

I think part of it, too, is that ...

a) the car is the only effective transportation
b) traffic is a mess
b) the majority of the greater L.A. area is essentially a flat basin between hills with lots and lots of freeways

... that helicopters become all-important for both police work and for traffic reports on the news.

Put the two together and voila -- high speed chases with lots of helicopters around to watch.

Plus there's the voyeuristic thrill of it all -- you KNOW the chase will end at some point, the end can happen at ANY time, you KNOW that the end will be violent and interesting to watch, but you DON'T KNOW exactly what will happen. He could be yanked out of the car by police, or he could plow into a school bus. The end is coming, yet anything is possible. It's almost perfect television, in a sick, perverted way.
posted by frogan at 4:19 PM on January 27, 2006

I was seven and I still remember watching it - but i remember being incredibly bored and not understanding what was going on.
posted by Amanda B at 4:24 PM on January 27, 2006

Yeah, I guess I "understood life in LA." There was traffic, voyeurism, famous people, and sad, pathetic human tragedy. If you could somehow work vegetarianism and a weird religion in there as well, you'd pretty much have covered everything.
posted by selfmedicating at 6:17 PM on January 27, 2006

kirkaracha, that transcript is a bit weird. Compassion and slight manipulation, but delivered for a professional goal—warm empathy, but fake. Interesting.
posted by Firas at 6:38 PM on January 27, 2006

I was fourteen and my family and I saw the end of it in a hotel room in Farmington, New Mexico, where we'd travelled to attend a fast-pitch softball tournament for my sister. I don't remember thinking I understood anything new about LA after seeing it.

Also, the town I lived in also had KTLA on basic cable. That's kind of weird, now that I think about it.
posted by sugarfish at 6:47 PM on January 27, 2006

Wow, I never realized it before, but was the OJ Chase as much of a national, "where were you" event as the JFK assassination or 9/11? It sounds like it.
posted by SuperNova at 6:57 PM on January 27, 2006

Eh. I don't remember where I was during the OJ Chase. Probably in classes or painting. Not watching it, that's for sure.
posted by furiousthought at 7:06 PM on January 27, 2006

Released March 4, 1994: The Chase, starring Charlie Sheen. A fun little low-rent satire worth a rent about a small-time crook mistaken for a big-time kidnapper. A media event follows, and all the elements are there -- news van (with Flea and Anthony Kiedis, no joke), nail strips, helicopters, the whole nine yards.

I agree with Shutter's analysis. Chicago, for example, had no police helicopters between 1980 and this month -- we just didn't do these media-event chases. Arguably, that meant that people didn't get themselves into situations where they were in a media-event chase.

My own OJ experience was at the Ravinia outdoor concert park, with the Chicago Symphony playing. I went to take a leak and found a gaggle of people around a window of the guard hut -- they had the TV on and we were getting glimpses and relayed updates for about 45 minutes (I checked back a couple of times; the group I was with was profoundly uninterested, but I was fascinated by the cultural implications). Eventually the management of the park made the guards turn it off, because there were around 100 people circulating nearby.
posted by dhartung at 7:33 PM on January 27, 2006

frogan's description reminds me of the televised pursuit of Montag towards the end of "F°451."

Weird how this event was so universally seen, but unlike for
example the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or the landing of Apollo 11
nobody cares anymore -- in fact it's like, better off forgotten.
posted by Rash at 8:27 PM on January 27, 2006

My recollection of the OJ chase is of harvesting strawberries from our back yard garden and cleaning them in the kitchen sink while my wife was sitting in the living room more or less narrating it to me.

It didn't really occur to me until just now, but my recollection of the first moon landing (dating myself?) is of watching it on TV while my mother cleaned peas harvested from her garden that day.

I can't say that the OJ experience taught me anything about LA, but it was at least less traumatic than watching the riots there after the Rodney King trial.
posted by hwestiii at 8:33 PM on January 27, 2006

In San Antonio, we had a local newsprint weekly - can't remember its name for the life of me - that was pleasingly smart-assy. The week of the chase, their headline was:

O.J. DOES 2 HOUR COMMERCIAL FOR THE FORD BRONCO
posted by Clay201 at 10:35 PM on January 27, 2006

I met my band at the Comet for practice, watched the chase for one beer's worth, went to practice, came back to the Comet three hours later and was amazed that the chase was still on.
posted by mwhybark at 12:26 AM on January 28, 2006

I saw only a portion of the chase on tv but I was living in China when the verdict was announced - it was headline news on Chinese tv and a major conversation topic among Chinese people (although I was never clear whether they had any idea who OJ Simpson was).
posted by bluesky43 at 7:22 AM on January 28, 2006

I was in high school and watched while making running commentary over the phone with my buddy. Having no cable at the time, I was watching ABC News, when suddenly Peter Jennings was interrupted by a phone call from one Robert Higgins, who signed off with "... and Baba Booey to y'all," still one of the greatest crank calls of all time. I watched it live. Many of the Peter Jennings obituaries mentioned that call.
posted by LilBucner at 9:07 PM on January 28, 2006

Not to thread hijack, but does anybody else remember Barbara Walters narrating part of the chase on ABC (they pre-empted 20/20) and then saying something vaguely racist, only to be cut off by (the late, lamented) Peter Jennings? Or am I remembering that incorrectly?
posted by anildash at 2:34 AM on January 29, 2006

I actually was watching The Chase at the Burbank AMC 14 (a 24 now) when I walked out and up the street to the Market City Cafe (boy do I miss that restaurant out here in Orlando) and saw that everyone was in the bar watching TV. So I went in and saw the white bronco on the freeway.

The moment was so surreal, I just shook my head and went home (where I watched all the juicy details on TV, of course).

The chase culture of LA is something else. Did you know therer is a service that will page you when a chase is on TV? My friend used to subscribe to it.

One that sticks out in my mind is a RV that made it all the way from San Diego County out to the boondocks of Los Angeles County, over the mountains and into the desert. Seeing an RV going off-roading was something. Never see that one replayed on TV for some reason.

The whole phenomenon hit its peak when the world watched on live TV as a man kill himself by driving his van at 80 mph into the back of a parked semi-truck on the I-5. Now cameras usually pull back when death looks imminent.

Maybe this is a good question for another AskMeFi thread... but, how would you ditch the police if you were being chased by the police?
posted by IndigoSkye at 7:06 PM on January 29, 2006