The unsettling part of the L.A. Riots in 1992 was that people were firing shots randomly all over the place. Some TV stations issued bullet proof
vests to staffers who were working in the streets of South Central Los Angeles.
One of the NBC news cameramen, a big burly guy named Bob, wanted to see if the vests actually worked, so he took the vest home and asked his wife to help him test it.
He said to her, “You put the vest on and I’ll fire a shot into it.”
She said, ”No way, you put the vest on, and I’ll fire the shot.”
There was no vest test.
The couple later divorced.
GUN PULLED ON US
One day, while covering a story during the LA riots my cameraman Pete Garrow and I were just finishing up on 108th street when a guy suddenly came up and pointed a pistol at us.
He ordered us to lay face down in the gutter and told us, “Empty everything in your pockets, including your watch, and put it all on the ground.”
Did as we were told.
I had about eight dollars and a Timex watch that I paid about $30 for.
Pete didn’t have a watch, also had about ten dollars.
I remember thinking, I hope this guy doesn’t shoot me in the head. He didn’t.
Instead, he scooped up everything on the ground and headed for his car, a
Honda Accord.
He told us not to look back as he made his getaway, but after about thirty seconds, while lying on the ground Pete turned around.
“Don’t do that, “ I told him.
“No problem. The guy just drove away.”
The robber didn’t bother to take the $40,000 TV camera we had standing on a tripod next to us.
He had kept the motor running during the robbery which gave him a quick way to leave he scene, and possibly move on to his next victims.
We reported the crime at the 77th Street precinct, which is one of the busiest crime divisions in the city. When I told the desk officer that my Timex was taken, he looked disinterested.
“If you don’t have the serial number, forget it,” he said.
SEX
An anchorwoman in Los Angeles once confided to me, ”When that red light on the studio camera goes on, and the newscast begins, I get a pleasure that’s better than sex.”
SPEAKING OF SEX
After covering a political story at the California State Assembly in Sacramento, I was riding back to the TV station sharing a taxi with a reporter colleague who had also been covering a story at the State Capitol building.
On the way, the cab driver asked us the following question: “Those women who are anchoring the news, they seem to be glowing. Are you guys having sex with them before they go on the air?”
“Absolutely,” my colleague replied with a smile and a wink.
“I thought so,” said the cabbie.
Later, it occurred to me that whenever this taxi driver watches the news, he thinks he’s looking at a woman who is glowing because she just had
sex.
“I’m a news junkie,” he told us.
.
ANCHORMAN QUITS
At the CBS station in Seattle, where I spent six months, our anchorman quit in the middle of a newscast. Angry at something the producer said to him, the anchorman just got up and walked off the news set. ”I quit,” he announced.
The woman who was co-anchoring looked quite surprised. Still she went on to finish the newscast sitting at the anchor desk reading the news next to an empty chair.The suddenly departed anchorman’s name was Walker.
After he left, we created a song called, “The Walker Walk.”