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Reporter II: Better Than Real Life (From The Culture of Crime, P 97-99, 1995, Craig L LaMay and Everette E Dennis, eds. - - See NCJ-159964)

NCJ Number
159974
Author(s)
E Buchanan
Date Published
1995
Length
3 pages
Annotation
The author, a Pulitzer Prize-winning police reporter for the Miami Herald, describes people's reactions when movie actor Kurt Russell accompanied her on her police beat to acquaint himself with a role he was to play in a movie.
Abstract
The first call to which the author and Russell responded was the murder of a young married couple in their own home. The crowd gathered at the scene of the crime consisted mostly of neighborhood residents. Russell and the reporter mingled with the crowd, the police, and the press. As a few people recognized Russell, word spread among the crowd about his identity. Many forgot about the tragedy that had occurred and the plight of the surviving children as they thought only of their experience of having seen a movie star in person. Many followed after Russell to get his autograph. While Russell was working on the same movie in Miami, the crew was shooting a murder scene on the beach at dawn. Coincidentally, a real-life murder was unfolding on the beach that early morning. Late the night before, a young couple had been drinking wine and cuddling in a car parked near the water. A stranger approached the car, announced he was a police officer, and ordered the young man out of the car. Upon emerging from the car, the stranger battered the man to death with a baseball bat. The killer kidnapped the girl, raped her, and then left her in a strange neighborhood. When the police took her back to the murder scene, she sobbed uncontrollably. A police officer happened to mention the film crew shooting nearby. The victim stopped crying and asked if she might get to meet Kurt Russell. The author learned from these experiences, that real life-and- death drama is not as gripping to people as the world of the movies.

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