Les’ Encounters with History | The Road Les Traveled

Les’ Encounters with History

Not my life, but my career (A front row seat on history)

By Les Rose, 2012

DISASTERS

9-11…Shankesville, Pennsylvania (that day and then NYC within the week)
Five network pool cameraman for five weeks on the road with Candidate Barack Obama, 2008
The Gabrielle Giffords shootings in Tucson, AZ (41 days of straight coverage), 2011
Alaska Air crash (off Santa Barbara)
Northridge Earthquake and numerous others
Oakland and Malibu firestorms (and plenty of others)
Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii and numerous in Florida
The Cerritos Air Disaster, Cerritos, California (first crew there…wiped out a neighborhood)
The Skyway Bridge Disaster in Florida (covered for ABC as a 22 year old)
The 1992 LA Riots (the most dangerous five days of my life)

MAJOR TRIALS

A FEW MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS ALONG THE WAY (in no particular order)

President Ford’s funeral in 2006
The Civil Wars of Nicaragua and El Salvador from 1984-1986, for NBC News
The 1999 Columbine High School shootings (for two and half heart breaking weeks)
The 2007 Democratic Debate in Las Vegas, NV
The 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles (I was pepper sprayed by the LAPD during a semi-riot!)
The 1996 Republican Convention in San Diego
The 1988 Democratic Convention in Atlanta (got a shot of Rosa Parks being turned away!)
Dr. Jonas Salk announcing testing of an Aids vaccine on humans
Hostage David Jacobsen’s release to a US hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany
Eight days in Nagano, Japan studying Japanese culture (for the 1998 Winter Olympics)
Twelve Academy Awards Presentations
The Death of Whitney Houston
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit Los Angeles
Nine Grammy Awards, Nine Grammy Awards, and Five MTV Awards
Every American Idol finals (yawn)
Three Superbowls
The Bankruptcy of the Crystal Cathedral
Jet Blue Landing (with front landing gear in the wrong direction!)
Five NBA Playoffs
Three Stanley Cup playoffs
Four World Series
Kurt Gibson’s Home Run during the 1998 World Series in Los Angeles
1985 Undefeated Chicago Bears VS. Miami Dolphins (Bears lost, 1972 Dolphins there!)
LAPD Rampart Police Scandal
Arnold for Governor Campaign
Los Angeles Diocese Priest Scandal
California Energy Crisis and Enron

SOME EXCITING EXPERIENCES I’D RATHER NOT REPEAT

A hostage situation in Tampa where I missed a gunman’s bullet by inches.
Waking up, thanks to firemen, inside a burning building (with sulfuric acid fumes).
Two emergency landings in a station’s helicopter.
Three commercial flights where, thanks to extreme turbulence, we had to land somewhere. Fast.
Being shot at in my stations’ parking lot during the LA riots.
Having a drunken man chase me with a crow bar, shutting down a live shot.
Having firemen run PAST me during the Malibu firestorm, yelling at me…”You are on your own…”
One 100 mph car wreck (stuck accelerator) where I broke two vertebrae and said lots of prayers.
The time I took a company car and it plowed into a limo, avoiding families and others…and it was in park! There IS “sudden acceleration” syndrome in Ford LTDs!
Fainting dead away at my friend’s wedding (locked knees and a too tight collar…).
Being a little too near too many Klansmen, without their robes on.
Running from Crips gang members in South Central LA who wanted my camera…twice.
Two words: Lindsay Lohan

SOME MORE MEMORABLE ONE ON ONE INTERVIEWS (non-human interest, but interesting)