COMMENTARY : Chase Outran the Usual TV Theatrics

It was matchless and amazing, at once a wildly improbable scenario that critics of crime movies would find unbelievable and an addictive live television drama that you couldn’t pull away from.

A fleet of police cruisers was tailing the white Ford Bronco on an Orange County freeway. For once, viewers weren’t enduring gratuitous crime coverage from local news.

Instead, it was former football great O.J. Simpson’s most memorable zig-zagging run, a murder suspect’s desperate flight captured live by an armada of seven Los Angeles news choppers streaking the skies like ghosts of Vietnam.

“Guys, guys, please stop,” KCBS-TV Channel 2 sportscaster Jim Hill begged Simpson and Al Cowlings, the apparent driver and the fugitive’s close friend, in an appeal from the studio that was being simulcast on KNX radio. “If you are listening, put on your emergency brakes, pull over to the side.” Later another pro, Simpson’s friend, Vince Evans, added his own plea on Channel 2, sobbing: “In Jesus’ name, just stop, man.”

Meanwhile, the pursued Ford Bronco continued west on the Artesia Freeway.

In fact, the entire day had been a video speedway of perilous potholes and hairpin curves, the likes of which had never been observed before. If there were ever an example of television being historic as well as instantaneous, this was it. Although stumbling earlier, for much of the day the people on television did themselves--and the public--proud.

Television is often accused of presenting even the most sorrowful events as entertainment, something to amuse rather than to inform and enlighten. Friday evening was refreshingly different. Things moved so swiftly as the evening wore on that there was no time for the hyperbole and the dramatic titles and musically backed choreography one so often associates with live television, no time for the made-for-TV drama. And no need. Step by riveting step, the excitement of the chase and the ache of the anguish were before us on the screen, as the media, police, Simpson and others became role players in this suspenseful and tragic adventure drama as if following a script.

For once, the script was reality.

Earlier in the day, Simpson had been charged with the murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman. Then he had gone back on an agreement to turn himself in to police. Yet as the Bronco traveled north on the San Diego Freeway, with Simpson reportedly holding a gun to his head as if threatening suicide, people stood on overpasses and cheered him and the unconventional motorcade that passed beneath.

Whooping it up for an accused murderer fleeing from police? “It is just a macabre curiosity that is driving them,” Channel 2 anchor Michael Tuck said.

Channel 2 interviewed rooters at one of the overpasses, and the compassion most of them expressed for Simpson, as if he were a hero on the lam from the forces of evil, was a testament to his enormous popularity and the weird unpredictability of human behavior.

Ultimately, the incredible chase ended benignly, with Simpson’s vehicle returning to his Brentwood mansion, pulling into the driveway and stopping. “There is a standoff,” said Channel 2 chopper reporter Bob Tur. “So far, Mr. Simpson is still in the vehicle.” A little later: “All right, the door is opening,” KNBC-TV Channel 4 anchor Paul Moyer reported. And out came Cowlings, who later appeared to be negotiating with Simpson and police.

By the time night had fallen on the scene, throngs of onlookers had been caught on TV gathering outside the big house as if celebrating some kind of gala. “Juice! Juice!” some yelled in support of Simpson. “Even children have come up here,” said disbelieving KTTV-TV Channel 11 reporter Jane Wells. “It is absolutely bizarre.”

KABC-TV Channel 7 anchor Harold Greene said earlier: “O.J. Simpson has come home on this Friday night.” As it turned out, Simpson hadn’t come home to die. “Unbelievable great news,” Tur reported about 8:50 p.m. from somewhere in the darkness. “O.J. Simpson is in custody.”

It was extraordinary television that ended well for Simpson and newscasters. But earlier, with team coverage breaking out all over the place, it had been television doing business as usual. With Simpson reneging on his reported agreement to turn himself in, local stations found themselves all dressed up for live coverage with nothing to cover. True to tradition, they covered it live anyway.

At one point during the morning, Channel 4 prematurely put up a picture of Simpson with this headline: “Simpson Surrenders.” In addition, several stations reported a possible second suspect in the case. Channel 5 attributed that to CNN, Channel 2 to “reports,” Channel 4 to a “credible news source.” Later, it was reported that there was no second suspect.

Speculation is the nourishing mother’s milk of live TV coverage.

Thus, on Friday afternoon, Channel 2 anchor Ann Martin announced gently, but ominously: “It is impossible not to speculate there is a body inside that condominium.”

Uh uh. No body.

“That condominium” was the Brentwood townhouse where Nicole Simpson and Goldman had been stabbed to death Sunday night. On Friday, with Simpson a fugitive from justice, the townhouse again became the center ring of this movable media circus.

Sometime that afternoon, someone identified as a member of Nicole Simpson’s family emerged from the residence and frantically shouted for reporters to call 911.

Soon police arrived. In much greater numbers, so did the media.

About 2:30 p.m., Channel 2 and Channel 4 choppers were above the townhouse. Then Channel 2 was live on the ground. Then KTLA-TV Channel 5 was live in the air. Then KCAL-TV Channel 9 was live on the ground. Then Channel 11 and KCOP-TV Channel 13 were live in the air. Although the Channel 7 Newsvan appeared stuck in traffic, even it would ultimately would arrive at the townhouse, joining the gawkers and others who had turned out for the show.

The place was surrounded.

Was Simpson inside? If so, was he dead? Had he returned to the townhouse and taken his own life there? As Martin acknowledged, it was impossible for her not to speculate.

It was when police cordoned off the area with yellow tape that the conjecture about a body flowed from Martin’s lips. And on Channel 4, reporter Joe Rico asked rhetorically: “Is it a possible suicide?” He said police were denying it. Moyer urged caution. “We do not know what happened here.”

Which is exactly when the media’s Hercule Poirots are most dangerous.

Ultimately, this latest townhouse mystery was apparently cleared up when it was reported that someone identifying himself as Simpson had called the townhouse and vowed to come over, causing the family member inside to panic and run outside.

“There were plenty of things to raise curiosity and speculation,” Martin said much later. Plenty of things. Later in the afternoon, for example, her co-anchor, Tuck, informed viewers that police had “converged on the Santa Monica airport. We don’t know why.” But we could guess. Simpson had obviously gone there to commandeer a plane to Cuba, yes? No. Overhead in his chopper, Tur later reported merely that police had the airport under surveillance as a precaution.

In triplicate or quadruplicate, meanwhile, let the television movies begin.

If there were ever doubts that these brutal slayings were destined for prime time--the November ratings sweeps have a nice cash smell--the events of fantastic Friday ended them.