Los Angeles Area High Speed Chase

[J-M v2.5.5]

HEY GUYS!
The most well-known Dutch weblog, GeenStijl, just linked a video of a Los Angeles Area High Speed Chase. This was just over an hour ago.

So I thought "neat" and instantly clicked on it. Now I see a car on some highway being filmed by a (presumably) police chopper, but A) there's no "high speed" and B) there's no "chase".
Where are the cops? What is this ****? Why is that chopper wasting fuel? Why has this 'chase' been going on for over one hour? Why was the car in a traffic jam a few minutes ago? Why am I still watching this (actually I'm not, I'm trying to do real-life stuff, but I have the tab opened and look at it so now and then, hoping something interesting will happen)?

tl;dr: What on earth is going on here? I don't get it.

Edit: So I just heard some dude (in the chopper?) say "...been going on for two hours..." and "...what used to be a pursuit, now a following [garbled]".
*confused*

 

[Thothie]

*sigh* Our news media is pathetic.

Basically, car chases are media spectator sports. We've got so many long winding roads, that the basic police policy is, usually, just to slowly follow the guy until he corners himself or runs out of gas (with the number of police helicopters about, there's really no way to evade the cops in a car, once they've stuck one on you). If the escapee's being particularly dangerous, they *might* lay down a puncture chain, but they are very reluctant to do that with the media watching. As a result of this policy (and in some ways the reason we have this policy) the media watches every car chase like a hawk, just on the off-chance "something interesting" happens... I, personally, think they should get to conscript the media station's helicopter when they pull crap like this. >_>

The big-city US media just salivates over this stuff. Meanwhile, they completely ignore MUCH MORE INTERESTING NEWS STORIES. :\

The problem is magnified ten-fold here in LA because there's also a good chance that the suspect may turn out to be a celebrity. Believe me, the two major news stations that weren't chasing OJ's truck are beating their collective heads into their collective desks to this day. At the time that was happening, the stations that were following him had no idea why, at least not until near the end of the chase - so now EVERY run away car must be filmed - for hours.

In the media's defense, they are rather limited on what they are allowed to report about due to the way they are owned and sponsored. So, given the options, car chases are a gold mine.

 

[Sabre]

lulz if it's Charlie Sheen.