Only In California: Car Chases Even Hollywood Couldn't Dream Up

Only In California is an occasional series where Patch tries to find answers to questions about life in Califonia. Have a question about the Golden State that needs answering? Send it to paige.austin@patch.com.

LOS ANGELES, CA — In “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” Ron Burgundy makes his career comeback by pioneering the live-broadcast car chase, lampooning a staple of breaking news in California. There can be no denying it’s a case of art imitating life, and, as the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction.

Imagine pursuit suspects stopping for selfies with fans, spinning doughnuts on Hollywood Boulevard and throwing burgers at a TMZ bus driver playing the hero — and that’s just from one memorable chase.

Sure, police chases happen everywhere, but no one does them like we do. Los Angeles is ground zero for car chases, both in sheer volume and in breathless news coverage of those high-speed spectacles.

So how did this come to be? Did O.J. do it?

Undoubtedly, O.J. Simpson’s slow-speed white Ford Bronco chase remains the most famous car chase of all time. With his former teammate and bestie Al Cowlings behind the wheel, Simpson led police on a two-hour, 60-mile chase through Southern California while a riveted nation watched. Nearly 100 million people tuned in to see how it would end, and the major networks interrupted their regular programming to follow "The Juice" that early summer evening in 1994.

But news stations were broadcasting car chases long before O.J. got in the white Bronco. Car chase coverage had its heyday in the 1990s.

By 2003, Los Angeles deemed the fascination with car chases a public safety issue. Then-Mayor Jim Hahn and Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton sent letters to local news stations asking them to lay off the chases.

Noting that there were more than 700 pursuits in the city the year before, Hahn and Bratton held a news conference to appeal to the media and their viewers.

"Police pursuits are not entertainment," Hahn said at the time, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. "They're certainly not a video game. They are life-and-death situations that put drivers, police officers, pedestrians, other innocent members of the community at risk. We are asking that you seriously reconsider your position on this issue because we do truly believe that it encourages some people to take advantage."

That news conference couldn’t match the ratings of a good chase, and the trend continued.

But then a live-broadcast chase ended in tragedy and horror. In 1998, a Long Beach man, Daniel V. Jones, sought to protest his treatment by HMO insurance carriers and killed himself on TV while using a car chase as his platform. He led police across Los Angeles freeways while news helicopters hovered above. He parked his truck on the Harbor Century Freeway transition loop in Los Angeles and unfurled a banner that read, "HMO's are in it for the money!! Live free, love safe or die.” Then he set himself on fire, put a shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger as the cameras zoomed in.

His live-broadcast death created an uproar and talk of a seven-second delay on live broadcasts that never really came to fruition. More than 20 years later, TV stations still broadcast chases live, but they often refrain from zooming in close — a legacy of the Jones tragedy. Though the entertainment appeal of the police pursuit is the tension, the drama and, yes, the circus, it’s tragedy that hovers over like an ever-present news chopper.

Every year, pedestrians and other motorists are killed or injured in wild pursuits. Often, passengers become unwitting participants in the case.

In March, a mother’s road rage crash in the San Gabriel Valley led to a pursuit involving multiple crashes and a SWAT standoff with a child in the back seat of the car, according to police. After police fired tear gas into the car, a little girl ran from her mother into the waiting arms of a SWAT officer as cameras zoomed in.

That same month, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department chase ended in a fiery crash that killed a bystander.

In North Hollywood, an actor killed himself during a car chase.

For news crews and viewers alike, the tragedy often comes as a surprise. It’s the drama and the spectacle that draws them in, and they’re rarely disappointed.

In 2001, a shooting suspect hijacked an MTA bus and forced the driver at gunpoint to lead Los Angeles police on a high-speed chase ending in a pileup.

In 2019, an actual clown with a chainsaw led police to Venice Beach, where he helped bury a sunbather in the sand after officers tried to stop him for driving 2 mph in the fast lane of the San Diego Freeway.

In 2015, a Los Angeles driver sped through red lights and raced over spike strips only to exit her car and dance as police drew their weapons. She got back in her car and continued the chase.

She wouldn’t be the last to bust a move during a pursuit. In 2019, another Los Angeles driver did the same thing, exiting his car and dancing away his final moments of freedom before police tackled him to the ground.

But most drivers don’t dance when the jig is up. They often smoke. Earlier this month, police trapped a driver in a downtown Los Angeles cul-de-sac and waited with their guns drawn while the driver smoked weed before surrendering.

Another driver puffed on a cigarette while enjoying his police chase Hollywood ending in 2017. That suspected car thief ended his pursuit at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He lingered in the street at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, taking a drag while dozens of tourists snapped pictures, and the LAPD closed in.

Only in California.