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Crime Scene : Seal Beach Shootout in Broad Daylight Is All for the TV Cameras

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Just your typical Tuesday in Seal Beach.

Four punks pulled up to the Dolphin Market in a stolen car and strafed a crowd of innocent bystanders with automatic machine guns. Then, as the gunmen zoomed away in a cloud of exhaust, scores of neighbors stood in the street, applauding.

A scene from the coming apocalypse? No, a scene from an upcoming episode of “Pacific Blue,” the cops-on-bikes TV show filming all this week in Orange County.

“We like it down here,” said Bill Nuss, creator and executive producer of the show, which is broadcast Saturday nights on cable’s USA Network.

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Waiting for the shooting--and the “shooting”--to start, Nuss sat on a quiet street corner near the south end of town, sounding like a charter member of the Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce.

“The community’s friendly,” he said. “The city’s cooperative. And Orange County in general has been very encouraging to film companies.”

But besides film-friendly officials, the county offers what professional yarn-spinners like Nuss really crave: small-town ambience and courteous citizenry, two things that went out with trolley cars in Los Angeles.

“I could live in a small town like this in a second,” said Rick Rossovich, who plays Lt. Anthony Palermo, the square-jawed leader of the bike patrol unit.

Darlene Vogel--the Connecticut-born actress who portrays a headstrong ex-Navy pilot with Grace Kelly’s bone structure and Greg LeMond’s legs--calls Seal Beach a welcome change from the impersonal megalopolis where she lives.

“I went into Rexall this morning,” Vogel said, sounding like someone who’d just seen a flying saucer, “and everyone said, ‘Hi!’ They have no attitude.”

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Indeed, the attitude-less beach town seems to be embracing Vogel, along with her demanding crew and fast-pedaling fellow cast members, as residents throw open their homes and businesses.

“It’s always so quiet and peaceful here,” said Kim Niemen, who lives near Ocean and Dolphin avenues, the scene of the brutal convenience store “crime,” which will be featured in the Sept. 14 episode. “This is a little excitement for our little town.”

Linda Zoelle, who owns the Dolphin Market with her husband, Ken, stood contentedly in the morning sunshine, watching a group of men preparing to blow the front of her family store to smithereens.

“I probably won’t even watch the show,” Zoelle said, though she sure was watching those special-effects guys install the trick windows made of “candy glass,” which tends to burst into a shower of telegenic shards.

For authenticity, the crew also hung in Zoelle’s window a hand-lettered sign that read: “Homemade Tortillas.” Nice touch, Zoelle grumbled, but “we don’t sell homemade tortillas.”

Such trifling concerns with reality were irrelevant to the various Hollywood types on hand, many of whom sat in canvas director chairs and viewed Seal Beach through a strange looking glass.

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For starters, isn’t “Pacific Blue” supposed to take place in Santa Monica? Yes, producers admitted, but folks in Peoria won’t know the difference between Third Street Promenade and Seal Beach Boulevard.

And those four gangbangers in the stolen car--are they drinking bottled water? Yes, would anyone else like some? Perhaps a chilled carrot stick, or an iced latte? Both were being served to actors and onlookers by an amiable waitress wandering up and down the sidewalk.

And, finally, that guy over there in front of Dolphin Market--isn’t he supposed to be dead?

“He’s actually dead, but he’s still walking around,” said Gary Nardino, executive producer. “He died a couple of days ago in Venice.”

Nardino explained that “Pacific Blue,” like most TV and film productions, never shoots in sequential order, so people live and die, die and live, depending on the whim of schedulers.

“You have to take it in context,” said Linda McDonald, a Seal Beach police officer helping seal off the street. “It’s not real. It’s not anything like real. If you wanted real, you’d watch ‘COPS.’ ”

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No sooner had McDonald said this than the four punks pulled up to the Dolphin Market and began shooting. Automatic gunfire rang through the neighborhood, and for a brief moment it all seemed chillingly real.

Then it was over. Neighbors were applauding, Nuss and Nardino were laughing, the latte waitress was giving refills. And the dead guy--an actor named Julio Dolcevita--was strutting his stuff.

“In Hollywood,” he said, coining the unofficial motto of a town, “you die before you’re born.”

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