Freeway Chase on Live TV Ends in Driver’s Killing

As five television news helicopters broadcast the scene live to much of Southern California, a man who had led authorities on a three-hour freeway chase through four counties was shot and killed Friday morning after brandishing a gun at officers.

The chase and fatal shooting closely mirrored a situation in April 1998, when several Los Angeles stations carried live coverage and tight shots of a man committing suicide at a freeway intersection after a long standoff with police.

At that time, several news directors at the stations, reacting to criticism by viewers and others, said they would reevaluate their live coverage of pursuits and other news and consider instituting a seven-second delay mechanism in case the events turned tragic.

Such delay devices were never employed. And there appears to be little or no interest in using them as car chases play an increasingly prominent part in television news.

Roger Bell, news director at KCBS Channel 2, which did not cover the shooting live, said he hoped that news stations would take greater precautions about live coverage after Friday’s shooting.

“I do hope that this has an effect on future safeguards. But when it comes down to it, the delay mechanism has to be in the news managers’ judgment.”

KNBC Channel 4, KTLA Channel 5 and KTTV Channel 11 were the only Los Angeles stations to cover the chase live. They were joined by San Diego stations KFMB Channel 8 and KNSD Channel 39 when the southbound chase crossed from Orange County to San Diego County.

The chase dominated much of morning television on a post-holiday Friday when children were out of school and eager to watch their favorite programs--a point made by some viewers who were angry at the stations’ decision to stick with the chase until its deadly conclusion.

All five stations showed the incident to its completion, although only KNBC showed a close-up view of the shooting. Others pulled back, a point of journalistic satisfaction among the news directors.

“As soon as we saw he had the gun, we widened out,” said Barbara Lewark, acting as executive producer at KFMB. “It is not our policy to show graphic violence. We have to be cautious, to err on the side of not offending the audience.”

Still, the incident is sure to spark additional debate on the use of news helicopters to provide live coverage of car chases and other breaking news. One veteran journalist called the incident “electronic voyeurism.”

“This kind of massive coverage of police chases brings out the worst in television and probably the worst in viewers, too,” said Dale Fetherling, a former newspaper reporter and editor and now an author and journalism professor at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. “We’re exhilarated by the pursuit but shocked by the often tragic result, which, I fear, the coverage itself may help bring about.”

Seconds after the shooting, KTLA switched back to the studio and anchors Barbara Beck and Carlos Amezcua. Beck was visibly shaken, and her voice trembled in her comments after the shooting, apologizing to the audience.

Jason Austell, a helicopter reporter for KFMB, referred to the man as having been “put down” and speculated that he might have been hit by a bean bag rather than a bullet.

KTLA news director Jeff Wald said he felt the station covered the chase and its fatal aftermath “as best as we could under the circumstances. We had our own safeguards in place, and we pulled wide as soon as he got out of the car.”

Saying he felt the station “covered this as responsibly as we could,” Wald said he also had an obligation to show viewers the resolution of the chase, no matter how tragic.

“Otherwise we get into the position of censoring the news,” he said. “We have a responsibility to inform and enlighten the public. It’s definitely not about ratings. When we cover a chase like this, the station loses revenue. We lose commercials.”

The deadly scene played out on Interstate 805 after the man’s car rolled to a stop at about 9:50 a.m. with a tire punctured by a spike strip put down by the California Highway Patrol. The driver, who was not identified, lived in Rubidoux. He was dead on arrival at a San Diego hospital, with multiple wounds to the chest, abdomen and legs. At least three CHP officers and three San Diego police officers may have fired; it was not known immediately if the driver fired any shots.

The immediate reaction among television viewers was mixed: Some expressed revulsion that a shooting was broadcast, others berated the stations for depriving them of a closer view of the denouement of the freeway drama.

“They shouldn’t show chases like that,” said Simon Romero, a compact-disc salesman from West Los Angeles. “They know there’s a good chance it’s going to end in a crash or somebody getting killed. This one was even worse because a lot of kids were home from school and watching television and waiting for their regular shows.”

The chase had begun at 6:45 a.m. in Rancho Cucamonga after a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy attempted a traffic stop when he spotted expired tags on the car.

CHP spokesman Phil Konstantin said CHP officers involved in the chase had been told that the man was a paroled felon with a history of violence. There also were unconfirmed reports circulating among the officers that he may have had a record of drunk driving and failure to pay child support.

The chase reached speeds of more than 90 mph as the car, a 1979 Datsun 280ZX, used four freeways to speed through the counties of Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and then San Diego. As he raced along Interstate 5 in San Diego, the driver was chased by a law enforcement helicopter and five news helicopters.

He waved at onlookers, smoked cigarettes and appeared to scribble a message and throw a wad of paper out the window.

CHP officers had placed a spike strip across Interstate 805 beneath an overpass, where news helicopters would not spot it and broadcast its location. After speeding over the strip, the Datsun slowed and finally rolled to a stop several miles away.

The man got out of the car, took a step toward officers and appeared to be talking to them as he leveled a gun at them.

“There were numerous commands by officers at the scene to ‘drop the gun, drop the gun,’ but that did not occur,” said San Diego homicide Lt. Glenn Breitenstein.

The man was struck by several bullets, and a police dog rushed in to seize his arm.

Nancy Bauer Gonzales, news director at KNBC, said some viewers called the station to praise the coverage, some to criticize it and others to blast the police for shooting the suspect.

“I feel very good about the way we handled this,” Gonzales said. “We covered the chase and acted responsibly.”

She said that anchor Kent Shocknek had warned viewers with children that the outcome of the pursuit was uncertain, and that they had a responsibility if young people were watching to get them away from the set.

Jim Sanders, news director at San Diego’s KNSD, said the chase was legitimate news that warranted breaking into regular programming.

“When you’ve got a guy driving that fast on two major freeways, on one of the busiest shopping days of the year when people are trying to drive to shopping malls, that’s something people need to know about,” Sanders said.

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Times staff writer Paul Brownfield contributed to this story.

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