By Monica SerafinSummer Bruin Columnist
"Police led on car chase from Pacific Avenue and Brighton Street in Burbank" - CLICK - "Uh, it appears that the third wheel is missing, but it is possible that this truck is a dually and might have another one" - CLICK - "We're not sure if there's one or two passengers, but two shots have been fired at police from the left side" - CLICK - "For the past hour police have been on pursuit of this battered delivery truck, and have done a fine job protecting innocent drivers from possible collisions" - CLICK - "It appears that the police have some specific strategy as to protect ..."
June 16 marked the one year anniversary of O.J. Simpson's Interstate Highway 405 tour. One year ago, I was in the process of moving out of my Sproul Hall dorm room. I unpacked my microscopic television with its wire hanger antenna and our floor had its last television party.
Never mind moving, Dad was on his way to pick me up and the traffic was moving nowhere. The freeways Simpson used are the exact ones my father preferred as he left Garden Grove. I could practically hear my mother screaming, all the way from Orange County, as O.J. and his entourage approached Sunset Boulevard. "Don't turn right! Don't you dare turn right!"
Maybe she feared Simpson would turn right, enter Sproul and take me hostage. The nation came together as we simultaneously smirked "guilty" while that ever-famous white Bronco and police entourage graced almost every channel.
Last Monday, while we were all glued to the television, once again relying on the newscopters and Channel 7's "award-winning on-the-scene reporting," one couldn't help but make a connection to the more infamous of police pursuits. Running, no matter what speed, is deemed an admittance of guilt, and when it's televised ... superstardom.
"What's he guilty of?"
"Maybe he's the leader of a drug cartel and that truck has millions of dollars worth of cocaine. He uses the unmarked, beat-up truck in order to keep a low profile, you know, FBI."
"Maybe - ooh, I got it! He's paying homage to O.J. Simpson and making the trek back to Nicole Brown Simpson's parent's residence in Orange County. He's on a political journey and it's televised."
I've been home for only a few days. For the past month I had been living in a blissful state of media apathy. What? Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered? What? Michael Jackson is still married?
At the end of each quarter, I usually find myself lost in a sea of couch, taking in everything one channel at a time. It takes a while to ease back into a society that isn't bordered with peach/mauve bricks like UCLA.
At times we are very sheltered. We don't know how to react to the leather glove incident. Any sudden onslaught of sensationalized media throws us a bit out of sorts or draws us in deeper. We are stuck in the media game.
"I hope he's not Latino," I whisper.
Mom hears me and offers a coin flip, but we both know that the chances aren't fifty-fifty. This is a live broadcast, the networks haven't had a chance to take affirmative action into account to increase and enforce negative stereotypes of Latinos and African Americans.
Live broadcast - he could be any color. Criminals come in every color and ethnicity. The reporters have speculated that there might be a passenger, too. Please let at least one be, say ... French American; there aren't enough bad images of them in the media.
All four of us, three in Orange County and one in Inglewood, are joined together watching (like idiots) two cars move at 30 miles per hour. Please God, let him not be Latino.
With all of the empty air time and no facts, the newscasters resort to nearly two hours of police praise. "Ooh, look how the police department has the situation under control; the suspect is not going to get out of this one ... the police must have some plan for this one; they are moving slow to prevent unnecessary injuries of innocent drivers."
Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that people were killed because of a high-speed police chase? Wasn't Rodney King in a high-speed chase? Why are they getting credit for the slow pace? Isn't the battered truck missing a wheel? I've heard stories about three-legged dogs, but a three-wheeled truck?
At 10 p.m. my parents called it a day. The driver's ethnicity was no longer important and neither was the name of the drug aiding his delusion. He was just another media honey, another display of "quick on-the-scene reporting." It takes professional journalists to find news-breaking speculation to fill up two-and-a-half hours; they even bumped "The Maury Povich Show."
The show ended at Long Beach and Vernon, far from any possibility of a would-be glamorous tribute to O.J. Simpson. The driver was not part of a huge cocaine cartel. The truck was not stolen.
It turns out that the driver panicked when a park ranger attempted to correct him as he drove the wrong way down a one-way street. The ranger claimed it was a common mistake. But a two-and-a-half hour chase? The driver's mother said that he had just been released from prison and was fearful of returning.
Oh yeah, he is Latino, and he was smoking marijuana ... (sigh) - CLICK.
Serafin is a third-year English/American studies student and the Assistant Viewpoint Editor.
Televised police chase lifts head out of sand