No, NBC did not cut away from the Olympics for a car chase in L.A.
*Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story stated that the NBC broadcast was interrupted by breaking news coverage of the car chase. That was incorrect. The local, half-hour NBC news broadcast started with coverage of the live car chase and returned to regularly scheduled Olympic programming once the news broadcast was over.
If you went to bed after the Team USA men lost their semifinal to the Czech Republic in a heartbreaking shootout, you likely did so believing that you’d witnessed the most dramatic moment of the night. For most of the country, that was the case. For residents of Los Angeles, the night’s most film-worthy spectacle went down thousands of miles from PyeongChang.
It started with a phenomenon that’s oddly familiar to those who live in L.A. — NBC took viewers directly from PyeongChang live to the scene of a car chase. It’s worth noting that breaking news coverage of a car chase is as essential to the Los Angeles experience as sitting in traffic on the 405 or drunken trips to In-N-Out.
However things got Mission Impossible-levels of interesting when Tuesday’s car thief drove into a train tunnel to lose the cops.
Nightly LA car chase tv reach a new level. Guy drives stolen pickup down tunnel on train tracks underground after driving on sidewalk, then t-boning a taxi.
— Carl Artopoeus (@carl_artopoeus) February 21, 2018
Yes, you read that correctly. After T-boning a taxi, a man in a stolen truck fled the police, and helicopter news footage showed him attempting to lose them by driving straight into a gold line train tunnel in Boyle Heights.
Unreal. This is a first. Car chase suspect hops the train tracks and disappears underground. @Stu_Mundel pic.twitter.com/wGDUgS8187
— MattMoneySmith (@mattmoneysmith) February 21, 2018
I was watching the olympics while finishing Book of Doom and they went to breaking news to a car chase and now I can't concentrate, but I can't stop watching because THIS MAN WENT DROVE ONTO TRAIN TRACKS.
— Sydni (@Singingsquid13) February 21, 2018
This dude is on the train tracks on the gold line. He is gonna hit a train pic.twitter.com/MWYiAwrq8g
— Bailey LA Kings (@BaileyLAKings) February 21, 2018
Was about to say it seems like people who drive in high-speed LA pursuits don’t ever seem to be enthusiasts much less connoisseurs of the genre but then this guy pulled the train tracks move and it’s like we’ve got a car chase PTA.
— Russ Fischer (@russfischer) February 21, 2018
NBC returned to their PyeongChang coverage after the news broadcast, but by then, L.A. viewers were so invested in the outcome of the chase that they actually switched over to the continued coverage from other local affiliates.
When you switch the channel from the Olympics to continue watching a car chase. #LosAngeles
— Atom Ramsey (@AtomRamsey) February 16, 2018
Bizarre pursuit. Stolen truck suspect drives into TRAIN tunnel in East LA. Metro train, Gold Line. One train slowly came in, and another came out. Hhmmmm. #Fox11News pic.twitter.com/HsKjqoxKBM
— Christine Devine (@DevineNews) February 21, 2018
NBC cuts away from car chase for the Olympics, I cut to KTLA to stick with the car chase. Priorities, NBC, priorities!
— Mike (@vmcny) February 21, 2018
More people at LAX watching the car chase TV than The Olympics TV.
— BrownsDailyMockDraft (@BrownsMockDraft) February 21, 2018
I just turned off the Winter Olympics to watch an LA car chase and now I understand how Donald Trump is president.
— Sam Bullard (@snakebullard) February 21, 2018
Channel 4 car chase coverage > NBC Olympics coverage
— Aaron Mendelson (@a_mendelson) February 21, 2018
The suspect was eventually apprehended and the victims of the crash with the taxi were treated by paramedics at the scene.
