[ArmstedFragg]

I made tapes of the news footage and watched them for refreshing my memory.

A couple of years ago, I worked on a pilot for Fox, and had some dealings with some of their "executives". One of their favorites was a gal whose claim to fame was that she'd staged news coverage for another network. Most of the rest of the group was cut from the same mold. I kept wondering if Rupert actually knew these people were working for him. From the looks of the "slant" on "44 minutes", they're still there.

Although I watched the incident live while listening to the LAPD radio system at the same time, I didn't tape the coverage, so I have only memory to rely on. I'd be interested in your observations about the most obvious disparities you spotted.

What stood out to me was primarily the sort of time distortions that happen in the course of trying to turn a real-life event into a dramatic piece, and they involved:

1. The number of units on scene when the duo first exited was much lower than depicted.

2. The firefight at the bank, and at the end, played-out far faster than depicted, with the time between SWAT crashing the car and Emil going down being just seconds.

3. SWAT was there sooner than depicted.

4. Instead of being a whiney ditz, the RTO in question did one of the most amazing dispatching jobs in history, at times actually taking command to try to bring order to the chaos. There were actually several RTO's involved, and a number of them were recongnized for their performance

5. The B&B guns were actually were scene sooner and some were employed.

And finally: Probably the greatest distortion was inadvertent and due to the problems that come from just trying to frame an interesting shot. In the course of doing so, the distances involved were thrown off. These guys were in what would be a perfect defensive position, with clear fields of fire and a lot of open space with little or no cover. The combination of the loss of that perspective and the dimishment of intensity caused by the time-stretching involved really watered-down just how intense an experience it was. Almost all the second-guessing messages on this thread are based on the fictional depiction, and most of them would not have been posted had their authors lived through the actual experience.

What think you?

[ALOHA RONNIE]

NEVER FORGET


1) The Shootout Scenes we saw in what I thought was a well told and scarey TV Story in '44 MINUTES,' as incomplete as it was, were not filmed on the Story's actual Shootout locations.

2) The Actual Shootout Scene on Laural Canyon Blvd had the Shooters controlling everything from the Bank of America's North Parking Lot ...holding the LAPD at bay in a hail of automatic weapons fire ...across the Blvd and a neighborhood side street, thus no Police Car ramming attempts were ever made.

3) L.A.'s Police "Scanner Lady" MARY LOU HOLTE was the on who called in the "Shots Fired" Shootout Call into L.A.'s Media, which brought in the TV Helicopters.

4) The Dentist across the street from the Bank was a true hero who braved withering AK-47 Fire to come down from his 2nd story office to rescue wounded LAPD Officers cringing at the botton of exposed stairway. (Not depicted in '44 MINUTES') This Dentist is a real sweetheart of a man.


Signed:..ALOHA RONNIE / Vet-N.H. Bank Shootout Anniversary Ceremonies ..ON SCENE.


NEVER FORGET