Before Sam and I moved to Texas in 2007 we lived in Los Angeles, a city that’s famous for three things: 1) smog; 2) breast implants; and 3) wild police chases. And today I had a chance to remember L.A. fondly when a breaking news story interrupted “People’s Court” and I spent 45 minutes watching a truly worthwhile police chase on live TV, with four squad cards trailing an imbecile in a silver Chevy pickup (which he carjacked at knifepoint) on the streets and freeways of Dallas.
The pickup was actually only riding on three tires; one blew out right after the chase began and left the truck with a naked rim to throw highly entertaining sparks and smoke. The driver, an O.J. Simpson wannabe who apparently was waving at vehicles and pedestrians, snaked around the service roads on Central Expressway going south, then north, then south again, connected to the Woodall Rogers Freeway westbound and exited downtown at Pearl Street, circled around Crescent Court (where Sam works), headed back north on Harry Hines to Mockingbird Lane and finally entered Love Field airport, where he plowed through a huge security gate and onto the RUNWAYS. All flight activity was immediately brought to a halt as ten million police vehicles chased him back and forth for a few minutes like the Keystone Cops until they spun him out on the grassy center median.
All in all, this was an excellent L.A.-quality police chase with plenty of continuous coverage from Chopper 11, our local CBS station, although the female reporter doing the voiceover was an escaped mental patient who could never quite figure out which direction they were headed. I found myself shrieking at the TV, “No! They're on the NORTHBOUND service road, not the SOUTHBOUND service road!” and “They just exited at MOCKINGBIRD, you idiot, not INWOOD!” But in all other respects she did a pleasant job. Anybody know how “People’s Court” turned out?
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