David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • http://www.appliedesoterics.com bfarn

    Always up to no good…

  • Tribune

    “purportedly” is this one of those look closely at the reflection to discover his weird fetish?

    • ironix

      Are you suggesting he dresses up as a bellhop at night in order to handle an anonymous stranger’s bags?

  • Emo Pinata

    It’s sad that enough people video tape their TVs that there is a question of if this video is real.

  • Bruce Dickinson

    The cop cars outside the window are *way* closer than the ones on the TV. Also, when he pans across to the other window, the TV still shows the car from the same angle on the same street, not the tail end of the car as you would expect had it made a right turn. Not even a convincing attempt at faking it. Even the “Holy Shit” is unconvincing

    Then again, after watching the longer one, if they have a ten second delay on their “live” broadcast, it is possible

    • flickerKuu

       Where do I start with you. Ok first off. The Television is not exactly LIVE as you think. There is absolutely a delay in reality vs. what you are seeing on the TV. Saying that the cars are “earlier” in reality is completely probable and expected, and is in no way proving anything.  Second by “way closer” you are referring to distance from camera. Depending on the lens used on both the phone and the helicopter, distances between objects in reality can be compressed. The longer the zoom setting on the lens, the more compression. Judging distance between to widely different “zoom lens” choices and calling that proof is suspect.  Third: I work in the film business. I know a real cop car when I see them. You don’t just rent 4 perfectly decaled cop cars for your you tube video. Occams razor dude, this is more likely real than the trouble it would take to fake it. Not sure how you even remotely came to the conclusion that this was faked.

      • Bruce Dickinson

        “Second by “way closer” you are referring to distance from camera.”

        No, I’m referring to the distance between the suspect and the cops chasing him. they are a good 10-12 car lengths behind him on the tv, but only twenty feet or so outside the window. But like I said, that was after watching only the short clip – the longer video shows them much closer when he does actually turn about ten seconds after it is shown on the teevee.

        As for you working in the film business, that’s very nice dear. I imagine that’s where you must have learned your impeccable manners

        “Occams razor dude, this is more likely real than the trouble it would take to fake it.”

        Fair enough.

        “Not sure how you even remotely came to the conclusion that this was faked. ”

        Then it would appear that you’ve given as much thought to my comment as i did to the original video before I saw the longer one.  Well, if you go back and read my post, you’ll see that I actually listed three reasons. You’ll also see that I initially didn’t consider that there might be a delay on the “live” broadcast (which pretty much invalidates two of the three I listed) , and allowed for the fact that I could be wrong as a result.

        • Mqrius

          Liked, for the effort of trying to have a discussion instead of presenting arguments as soldiers ( http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Arguments_as_soldiers ). Could be touched up on a few points, but I’m giving it a solid 8/10, considering the setting :)

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=568023301 Dave Layzell

        It’s fake mate, I just watched it in sync with the real chase.  The cop cars in the fake turn the corner way before they do on the actual stream. [edit] On further reflection, I think the footage is real, the location is real, but the shot on the TV is out of sync with the shot through his window. My theory is that as they had done a few laps around his block already, he rewound the live tv feed to a point where it would look like it was live as they came past his window for a third or fourth time. This is a video i made showing how he “staged” a real cop chase going past his house :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMIxBVs88J8

        • flickerKuu

           Wrong. It’s real. See above for reasons. Occam’s razor look it up.

    • xzzy

      Depends on the lenses being used. A wide angle lens on the helicopter could be exaggerating how big things appear.. similar to soccer players on a field. A narrow angle lens on the guy recording, on the other hand, could compress the depth of the scene.

      If nothing else, the fences match up with the still frame included in the story. 

      • flickerKuu

         If nothing else, locking down a few blocks in LA, paying for 5 photo-ready police cars and stunt drivers, an ND car and driver, helicopter, etc. Graphics for the “live” news feed, etc, etc etc. Would take about 60,000 or more dollars to “produce”. All for a you tube video. I’m going with it’s real. 

  • http://nullrend.com/ nullrend

    This is is just tangentially related with crime and cops… but it says a lot about the area you live in when the windows have wire glass in them as break-in deterrents.

    • http://twitter.com/flyoverland flyoverland

      There is a very nice part of STL near Forest Park, but which backs to a very high crime area. A doctor I know was looking at a house there and asked the realtor why the house had wrought iron bars on the windows and doors. The realtor said, “oh, the former owner had a mentally challenged child and they wanted to ensure he didn’t get out in the street.” To which, the doctor looked up and down the street and said, “boy, there must be a lot of mentally challenged kids on this street.” 

    • Preston Sturges

      Haven’t seen that since high school.  Actually, he seems to be in a business because if you look at the reflection of the room in the window you can see a number of fluorescent light fixtures in a suspended ceiling.

    • http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

       Maybe it was designed by Frank Gehry?

  • west

    The picture of the “fellow looking out his window” looks like a guy standing in front of the window.

  • awjt

    Just like in Farenheit 451… it’s televised and commented on endlessly in the blogosphere as it’s happening.

    • Preston Sturges

      Where is “the mechanical Hound?”  The next film version must have the Hound, which was a spider like robot..

  • http://twitter.com/flyoverland flyoverland

    Priceless

  • Jörg Brüggemann

    The Video is definitely real. But the arrow in the screen grab is pointing on a guy outside his window, not the guy inside. His camera is zoomed in and you only can see the feet of the Videographer in the left window, then moving towards the 2nd window. The Guy outside is only visible for just a short moment when he points the camera out of the 2nd Window (left one from Videographers perspective). What a coincidence.

    • David Pescovitz

      I think you’re correct that the guy on the right is outside his window. I had added the arrow but have now removed it. Thanks!

  • usonia

    It sounds like the guy being chased has done this loop a couple times (“And now he’s slowing down again, which is familiar…”). So the dude probably grabbed his camera & acted surprised for the 3rd go-round? FAKE!

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YSHGJCP6UFUWQSCYDOHXZAONFY Chris May

      Look at the other videos in the youtuber’s account.  He posted previous “laps” of the chase before posting this video.  Long story short – the video is genuine but not quite as random as it appears (i.e. he had good reason to believe the guy would drive by again).

  • ObeyMyBrain

    Listen to the reporter on the TV. He seems to imply that the police chase has been going in a loop. “he slows down every time after going through the light. He’s again heading toward the airport” This was probably the third or fourth time that it had passed by his house. He probably just decided it would make a better video if it seemed like it was suddenly on him out of nowhere. If I was more interested I would check out the longer video to see if it made that clear.

  • Hans von Tagg

    It’s real, but it is NOT a coincidence.  Listen to Alex, our enthusiastic narrator, starting at about 1:40 on YouTube: 

    “…we laugh because this guy has just circled so many times, we’re hearing the same street names over and over again now…”

    I was wondering why the dude was videoing his TV in the first place.

  • Donald Petersen

    About ten years ago, I was working over at CBS Studio Center over in Studio City, CA.  It was a slow, boring evening in the production office, and one of the producers noticed on his office TV that the news helicopters were following a police chase that was headed into our neighborhood.  We gathered around his TV, and sure enough, the perp was zipping down westbound Ventura Blvd and approaching Colfax.  We ran out the office door and the fifty yards over to the Colfax Gate, just in time to see the perp and the cops haul ass by at around 60 miles per hour, helicopters in hot pursuit.  And then we wandered back inside to see if our boss had seen us flipping off the helicopter on TV.

    It was mildly disappointing that, at the time, there was no convenient way to watch ourselves watching the pursuit in real time.  The TV was kinda heavy.

    • Shibi_SF

      Plus, dragging the TV cords along with you would have probably killed the moment. 

      • Donald Petersen

        Can’t argue with that.

    • Aram Jahn

      I would think that close to half of the people who live in LA have had a similar experience. In the early aughts (2002?) I was sitting in a bar in Redondo Beach on Pacific Coast Highway, and a police chase – always gets good ratings for the local “news” stations – came on. The perp was being followed by a police helicopter, at least three local TV “news” choppers, and at least 10 cop cars. Then I realize he’s speeding down PCH around El Segundo. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the sirens got louder, I turned my head and saw the chase outside the window.

      These idiocies are so popular in LA (or they were when I lived there) that some bars started charging 1/2 on drinks while the chase was on. 

      Now that the voters have spoken on “Three Strikes” I wonder if the number of chases has gone down? I remember the novelist Ed Bunker (“Mr. Blue,”a bit part, in Reservoir Dogs), who’d spent plenty of time in stir, said the Three Strikes laws were really dangerous for cops, ‘cuz who is gonna go quietly when they’re about to be apprehended for their Third Strike? You shoot it out, take hostages, try to evade. Hey, you may as well…

  • planettom
  • http://twitter.com/sckinjctn SCK

    The conversation threads above are interesting, but I’d just rather to stick to… that was kinda cool, in a really stupid kinda way.

  • igpajo

    Dude, that’s just so Meta!!