This article was published on June 7, 2016

If you’re gonna livestream a car chase, you should probably follow the right vehicle


Last week during Memorial Day in the United States, while many of us were out celebrating the unofficial start of of summer, the NBC Los Angeles crew were hot in pursuit of a car chase.

Only problem? After following a suspicious Kia for a while, the helicopter began focusing on an Infiniti that looked similar to the actual car being chased. The news crew had no idea what was going on, audibly wondering why police gave in to the chase and offering analysis on what can be done to catch the crook.

Left: Suspect car (no sunroof) | Right: Joe Schmo's car with sunroof
Left: Suspect car (no sunroof) | Right: Joe Schmo’s car with sunroof

This went on for about five minutes until the team realized what was going on and had to awkwardly explain that it was just livestreaming Joe Schmo’s car while the suspect was up ahead.

“There are folks watching at home and wondering why we’re continuing to cover this chase,” an anchorman says on the air. “But this is a public safety issue.” Oops.

To be fair, the cars did look quite similar, but if you’re gonna cover car chases, let’s focus on getting the right car before analyzing how cops should do their work. I mean, you had one job.

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