Tur Running Against the Grain

Those in rival TV helicopters remember how he would swoop out of nowhere and circle counterclockwise over news scenes while they all flew clockwise.

These days his rival candidates for mayor of Los Angeles probably wonder the same thing about Bob Tur. Where did he come from? And where is he going?

In the crowded field of six major candidates and nine quixotic ones in the April 10 mayoral election, Tur seems the most colorful--and cocky--of the bunch.

The helicopter pilot/reporter who lays claim to the title of inventor of the televised police pursuit is campaigning for mayor armed with the brick that a rioter used to beat Reginald Denny and with an unusual perspective of Los Angeles.

His voice rises and takes on a sense of urgency as he ticks off reasons that he says voters should consider him for mayor. It’s a voice honed by a thousand news reports delivered over the engine whine and the whup-whup-whup of his jet-powered helicopter.

“I’m running for mayor because I see some of the same serious problems I saw in 1992 that led to the Los Angeles riots,” Tur said. “I’m seeing a Police Department that is not just mismanaged but can’t even find applicants suitable for the job. I see 60 police officers a month resigning from the department for other smaller departments.

“I see gridlock on the streets. I spent 9,000 hours in the air and I watched the city come to a complete stop. The emphasis in Los Angeles is to write parking tickets--the city makes a fortune from them. What happened to putting these ticket-writers on street corners and getting Los Angeles moving?

“I know the way this city works. We have one of the most corrupt cities in the country. The reason it’s so corrupt is because everybody thinks it’s honest and it’s not. You know the truth when you go to Chicago. The difference here in Los Angeles is you believe it’s honest--and that’s dangerous.”

Slightly built and intense, the 40-year-old Tur is no stranger to such high-flying proclamations. Or to danger and drama.

In his career as a helicopter reporter, he televised the world’s first live-broadcast police chase. Later, he was the first to find and follow the famous low-speed pursuit of O.J. Simpson.

An impulse led him to Simpson’s white Bronco moments after authorities saw the fugitive former football star.

But impulsiveness has often played a larger role in Tur’s life.

In 1988 he rescued 54 guests from Redondo Beach’s wave-battered Portofino Inn when he decided to stop reporting on the storm and start hauling out people trapped by surging ocean water. In an hour, he made 17 trips ferrying people to safety.

The next year he staged a more bizarre kind of rescue. A man needing a kidney transplant was camping in the desert near the Arizona line, out of range of his transplant center beeper, when a donor was found. In the middle of the night, Tur flew to the area and found the man after announcing 150 times over the chopper’s loudspeaker: “Charles Ridgeway! We have your kidney!”

Coverage of Denny Beating

During the 1992 Los Angeles rioting, Tur was the only reporter near Florence and Normandie avenues as a mob began beating truck driver Reginald O. Denny. When he noticed that there were no police in the area, Tur descended to about 70 feet while his wife, Marika, aimed a TV camera at the scene.

“We’d called repeatedly for LAPD and they didn’t come,” Tur said. “So we decided to drop down and create documentary evidence. This was history in the making and we wanted the public to know what was going on.”

The live images of Denny being dragged from his truck and pummeled with a brick were aired on KCOP-TV Channel 13, which had a contract with Tur at the time. When other stations around town and across the country rebroadcast the brutal scene, Tur decided to sue those who aired his pictures without permission.

“All the looting during the riot didn’t take place on the streets of Los Angeles. It took place in TV newsrooms across America,” Tur said. “I took it to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to show that news material is copyrighted, and I won.” Most of his sizable settlement went to attorneys, according Tur.

Tur was in Los Angeles Superior Court for the trial of Denny’s attackers. His video evidence and eyewitness identification of the suspects led to their conviction. As a souvenir, grateful prosecutors presented Tur with the brick seized as evidence.

These days it’s used as a doorstop at Tur’s hillside home in Pacific Palisades. “I want to give it to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. They do a real good job of warehousing evil,” he said.

Despite his derring-do and willingness to testify in court, authorities are not always happy to see Tur show up.

His pilot’s license was yanked twice after officials complained that he flew too low over news scenes--the site of actor Dean Paul Martin’s fatal plane crash and a burning pier in Redondo Beach. Tur denied the allegations but for four years was forced to hire other pilots to fly him until his license was restored.

Tur ended his 15-year airborne reporting career in 1998 after a contract dispute with CBS. He sold his helicopter for use as a medical center air ambulance in North Dakota.

Tur acknowledges his reputation for abrasiveness. He sometimes angered police by commenting on the dangerous speeds of pursuits along busy streets.

“I tell the truth. That’s my training as a reporter. I’m not going to lie to people,” he said.

As to complaints from rival news crews that his gun-metal gray helicopter sometimes surprised them in the air, Tur says that’s true. But it also could be sour grapes, he said:

“They flew cheap helicopters, Jet Rangers. I spent money and bought an Astar. I had to fly counterclockwise because that was where the [camera] door was. They flew 90 mph. I flew 160 mph.”

Tur and his wife now produce high-definition television footage for documentary shows. Daughter Katharine, 17, and son James, 15, are often involved, such as with Tur’s coverage of last week’s Mir spacecraft reentry into the South Pacific. James, in fact, shot scenes of the fiery descent that aired Monday on CNN.

But camera work on the ground can be as unpredictable as work in a helicopter, Tur has discovered.

While shooting footage during last summer’s Democratic National Convention, Tur said, he was hit six times by plastic bullets fired by Los Angeles police.

“Instead of doing what everybody else does and sue the city of Los Angeles, I decided I was going to run for mayor,” he joked.

Tur had barely finished collecting petition signatures to qualify for a spot on next month’s ballot when he had his most recent run-in with police--this time at Los Angeles International Airport.

According to Tur, he was arrested when he protested being stopped from videotaping in the airport by an LAPD officer. During the confrontation, Tur suffered a minor heart attack and had to call for an ambulance. He balked at plans to take him to a local hospital instead of UCLA Medical Center, where he wanted to go. He said police arrested him a second time after paramedics arrived.

‘It’s the Best $1,000 I’ve Ever Spent’

“They arrested me for being in a ‘restricted area’ when I stood up from the gurney,” Tur said. Police officials say Tur was merely handcuffed and “detained” twice rather than arrested. In the end, paramedics took him to UCLA anyway, where he was treated for several days and released.

Los Angeles-born and raised, Tur plans to spend about $1,000 on his mayoral campaign, which he acknowledges is a longshot. But “it’s the best $1,000 I’ve ever spent. I’ve been able to get on radio shows and into one debate and tell the truth,” he said.

Tur’s supporters say he would have a positive impact on Los Angeles as mayor.

“You’d certainly see things change. He has a good depth of knowledge and a feel for the individual. He’s seen people in stressful situations and has empathy for them. That’s missing from other candidates,” said John Vitale. “He’s certainly independent. Nobody’s going to ever be able to buy Bob.”

Tur says he would act swiftly if he was elected mayor. “Within 90 days this city would be turned around,” he vowed, the cocky chopper reporter in him revving up once again.

Marika Tur smiled. “At least I don’t have to hang out of a helicopter while he’s doing this,” she said. “But I think he should be suing the LAPD instead of running for mayor.”