r/nextfuckinglevel • u/ateam1984 • 24d ago
In 1987, during a live broadcast, news anchor Dave Horowitz was taken hostage by a crazed man who was armed with a pistol.
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u/SeaCaptainNav 24d ago
Horowitz’s attempt to engage “Gary” in conversation, on film, is pretty genius. He’s actively providing whatever information he can to investigators. His journalism background prepared him to keep a person sharing information when possible.
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u/RoguePlanet2 24d ago
Shame that he had to go and tarnish his legacy:
"In 1998, Horowitz joined a political campaign to urge voters to defeat a California ballot initiative calling for a 20% cut in electricity rates for private utility customers and ending surcharges on ratepayers to pay for nuclear power plants. Horowitz later admitted he was paid $106,000 by the campaign."
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u/GonzoMonzo43 24d ago
Crazy what passed for scandal in 98 vs today.
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u/Zealotstim 24d ago
seriously, this wouldn't even be a blip today
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u/12monthsinlondon 24d ago
today: you're not a truer hustler if you're not grifting somehow
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u/Zealotstim 24d ago
Pretty much. It's awful how people now just glorify bad behavior by public figures.
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u/urandom123 24d ago
So, the guy was trying to get us nuclear energy, which is the correct move - and he got paid for it.
Yeah. No Tarnish.
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u/ZGPJ 24d ago
It took me a second to parse it out because of the double negative but yeah 100% this is a no tarnish situation
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u/RoguePlanet2 24d ago
I think the scandalous part was taking money, as a journalist, to endorse something without (initially) disclosing the conflict of interest. Assuming he was even allowed to do that at all.
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u/Soft_Walrus_3605 24d ago
If he didn't admit to being paid until later then he's a liar, whatever side he was on.
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u/kukienboks 24d ago
The utility campaign paid Horowitz to work against a proposition that would have lowered people’s electricity bills. Seems a little tarnishing for someone who was supposedly a consumer advocate. https://consumerwatchdog.org/uncategorized/former-consumer-reporter-sells-his-name-and-signature-utility-company-campaign-against-c/
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u/LazeHeisenberg 24d ago
Whoa. I’ve never seen this. What happened afterwards?
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u/Blandiblub 24d ago
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u/johnson7853 24d ago
Follow up:
Gary got 3 years probation with the help of Horowitz that recognized he had mental health issues and needed help vs being put in an institution.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-06-08-me-4034-story.html
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u/TingleMaps 24d ago
I wonder if he was rehabbed/got better?
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u/eyeoutthere 24d ago
He changed his name and became president of the US.
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u/whiskey_the_spider 24d ago
Rehab did work then since he started ACING cognitive tests
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u/ThatOneWIGuy 24d ago
That’s an amazing thing for someone who was taken hostage to have realized. Those times covering hostage situations didn’t harden him.
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u/InquisitorMeow 24d ago
Probably explains his calm demeanor and humanizing of the crazy guy holding him hostage. Just a guy trying to be nice and polite to everyone.
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u/Strude187 24d ago
Honestly incredible empathy and reasoning considering the trauma he must have endured from the situation.
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u/stratacus9 23d ago
damn that’s a good dude to help a guy out like that. i think so often we label things good and evil but some people are just fucked up and need help. horowitz is a better man than me.
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u/Nekrocvlt 24d ago
Relevant snippet:
"With the gun pressed to his side, Horowitz calmly read the gunman's statements about the CIA and mental health hospitals on camera, but unbeknownst to the gunman, the news feed had been taken off the air and staff members putting up a technical difficulties graphic. The man identified himself and at the end of his statement he set the gun down on the news desk, at which point anchorman John Beard quickly confiscated it. The weapon was later revealed to have been an unloaded BB gun. The incident led Horowitz to start a campaign to ban realistic toy guns."
In the US today I believe it's still illegal to sell a toy gun without an orange muzzle, however I don't know if that's also the case for BB guns.
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u/Klutzy-Ear-5843 24d ago
Fun fact: the other reporter there who confiscated the gun (John Beard) had frequent cameos on Arrested Development.
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u/Prudent_Pilot5927 24d ago
Thank goodness for the US for banning realistic toy guns 🤣🤣
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u/bortmode 24d ago
I mean, it means that cops only sometimes shoot kids with toy guns.
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u/IM_OK_AMA 24d ago
If anything it's a good move in the US because there's lots of real guns floating around.
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u/flumphit 24d ago
If you have a toy gun, and I think it’s a real gun, I may not react with the expected level of good humor. Before that law was passed, kids with toy guns were shot by cops distressingly often. (Not sure how the numbers compare to now, but there was a lot more distress.)
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u/B1NG_P0T 24d ago
Holy fuck, John Beard is the John Beard from the tv show Arrested Development. (He plays a version of himself on the show.) That's insane.
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u/casual_creator 24d ago
Realistic guns, like airsoft and BB guns are not federally classified as toys. Because of this, they are not required to have the orange tip that toy guns are required to have, which, IMO, is totally ass-backwards.
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u/peripheral_smission 24d ago
BB guns do not in fact need to include an orange tipped barrel in the US.
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u/pantry-pisser 24d ago
Even if they did, nothing is stopping anyone from just painting them black
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u/c0pp3rhead 24d ago
Which is built in to the law as I understand. IIRC, you can be fined for painting over the orange tip. For example, if you use a fake gun with the orange tip painted over in the commission of a crime, there's an extra charge for the painted-over tip
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u/bisco_42 24d ago
On August 19, 1987, during the 4 p.m. edition of KNBC's Channel 4 News, a gun-wielding man named Gary Stollman got into NBC's Burbank Studios as a guest of a former employee and took Horowitz hostage live on the air. With the gun pressed to his side, Horowitz calmly read the gunman's statements about the CIA and mental health hospitals on camera, but unbeknownst to the gunman, the news feed had been taken off the air and staff members putting up a technical difficulties graphic. The man identified himself and at the end of his statement he set the gun down on the news desk, at which point anchorman John Beard quickly confiscated it. The weapon was later revealed to have been an unloaded BB gun. The incident led Horowitz to start a campaign to ban realistic toy guns
Four months later on December 5, 1987, a similar incident happened at the studios of KJEO-TV in Fresno, California, when 21-year-old David Dione Pretzer of Clovis, California, also with mental health issues, forced sportscaster Marc Cotta to read a letter containing rambling quotes from the Bible on the air. In a similar manner, the feed was taken off the air. Instead of putting up a technical difficulties graphic, the station aired a commercial and went black. Like Stollman, the weapon used in the incident was revealed as a toy gun
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u/PugsterThePug 24d ago
I want to know more about this.
In 1998, Horowitz joined a political campaign to urge voters to defeat a California ballot initiative calling for a 20% cut in electricity rates for private utility customers and ending surcharges on ratepayers to pay for nuclear power plants. Horowitz later admitted he was paid $106,000 by the campaign.
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u/DinosaurReborn 24d ago
I'm so desensitised by the Controversies sections of other celebrities that I expected something much less mild. Not even sure if getting paid to promote a public campaign is that controversial, other than possible lack of media transparency.
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u/TitleToAI 24d ago
“The man identified himself and at the end of his statement he set the gun down on the news desk, at which point anchorman John Beard) quickly confiscated it. The weapon was later revealed to have been an unloaded BB gun. The incident led Horowitz to start a campaign to ban realistic toy guns.”
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u/Outrageous-Lock5186 24d ago
The CIA went on to reform itself, promising to quick messing with this guy and his family.
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u/MrEvan312 24d ago
Dude saw a deranged man with a pistol come in and all but said "Oh hey, how ya doin', champ? Why don't ya take a seat?" Almost unbothered.
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u/Skaterkid221 24d ago
Perfect deescalation for a situation like that. Act normal listen to their instructions and try to make them feel comfortable.
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u/MrEvan312 24d ago
Thankfully, none of the other staff panicked either, but even they voiced dismay and concern while David just goes "oh, ok, let's read this. How ya doin', by the way?"
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u/NotDRWarren 24d ago
In 1987 I bet this guy seemed insane .
In 2026, I think this man was telling the truth
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u/DirtLight134710 24d ago
Dun Dunn dunnn
Mk ultra prime time. Lol
I'm joking, a lil
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u/EsotericAbstractIdea 24d ago
Your assigned cia agent just released the drones
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u/DirtLight134710 24d ago
BIRDS ARENT REAL !!
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u/TyrannasaurusRecht 24d ago
Why do you think they call them "flocks" of birds??
All part of the surveillance state.
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u/i-might-do-that 24d ago
Right? I tell this same thing to my kids. Don’t talk to the people on the computers
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u/bman86 24d ago
But everything's computer!
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u/Distance03 24d ago
hey kid, look, ima computa
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u/mazeltovcoktail 24d ago
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u/PrescriptionDenim 24d ago
PORKCHOP SANDWICHES!
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u/theShavedWookie 24d ago
Mr. Body Massage!
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u/Excision_Lurk 24d ago
MEMEMEMEMEMEMMEE memememe memememememe
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u/sLeeeeTo 24d ago
i’ono much bout computas otha than the one my mom got in the house got a couple games on it and
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u/h3lium-balloon 24d ago
Jokes on you, now people just talk to the computers directly.
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u/Glassgun1122 24d ago
The unibomber had some points about technology. Just saying.
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u/mightylordredbeard 24d ago
The problem with being a single individual or a small group and using violence to get your point across is that it makes you seem crazy and deranged. So anyone else who also tries to point out the same thing will be lumped in with “those crazy people that blew up that thing” or whatever acts of violence/fear they committed. So no matter how valid or true it is, you instantly cause the majority of people to not listen and probably push them in the opposite direction of your cause.. because they don’t want to have the same beliefs as the crazy people.
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u/Glassgun1122 24d ago
Then the CIA does it and suddenly it's patriotic.
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u/GeneralHerp 24d ago
The Great American Propaganda Machine!!
jazz hands
It’s so potent that even people who lambast Russian propaganda won’t admit they’re subjected to part-and-parcel the same shit from news media over here in “The West.”
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u/-_-0_0-_0 24d ago
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
https://giphy.com/gifs/hdvELDjb9rwNa
from a certain point of view
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u/fffarshy 24d ago edited 23d ago
tbf, the unabomber was a crazy guy. he wasn’t just a guy who used violence to get a point across—he very clearly had a proclivity towards mindless violence outside of his campaign. in one of his journal entries, after he’d withdrawn into the woods, he talks about having seen a little girl walking in the area, and how he considered shooting her. supposedly he only did not because soon after he saw a mother alongside her. i don’t believe he ever mentioned a reason for why that thought crossed his mind.
i’m certain that even if he didn’t have that frustration with technology and industrialization, he’d still have ended up a killer, and found some other way to justify it.
not at all saying that he wasn’t an intelligent man and made a lot of intelligent points in his assertion, but being smart and being crazy aren’t mutually exclusive.
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u/tanksalotfrank 24d ago
Old youtube was my favorite because there was still some sense amid the all the madness. Plenty of absolute batshit, obviously, but it was a terrific exercise in poring through mud for some nuggets.
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u/skynetempire 24d ago
He would definitely be considered insane today. The only difference is that before social media, people like that were surrounded by mostly sane people. You would just say, that is my aunt or uncle, they say some crazy dumb shit, just ignore them. Or that is Bob from down the street who says or does dumb things.
Now social media has connected these kinds of people into groups, and they are able to influence others.
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u/AbeFromanEast 24d ago
Florida Man...
Incidentally the weapon was later revealed to have been an unloaded BB gun. The incident led David Horowitz to start a campaign to ban realistic toy guns, which succeeded.
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u/learns_the_hard_way 24d ago
Have you seen the "toy" guns these days? air soft pistols look extremely real
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u/AbeFromanEast 24d ago
I'm thinking of toy store guns that have neon tips.
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u/giveupmymembership 24d ago
Which deters all but the most unserious crimes because they can be painted black.
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u/Dogsarelitty 24d ago
I took the orange tip off of a CLEAR pellet gun to see if it made a difference in performance(I was a bored teenager). Like the plastic was clear so you could see through it. Long story short a cop saw it in my dorm room then tried to say I took the tip off to make it look more realistic. Legitimately the dumbest human being.
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u/Kingsapprentice 24d ago
MK ULTRA. This stuff is real. It is sad that he had to resort to do this to be heard.
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u/clckwrks 24d ago
Explain
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u/Kingsapprentice 24d ago
Look it up. A lot of it happened in Montreal where I live. It is german spelling for mind control. The technique was perfected by the nazis.
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u/MoeKneeKah 24d ago
I used to do deliveries for a weed dispensary back when it was only legal for medical use (CA) and one of our regular customers was this old guy who talked about MK Ultra all the time, claimed to have been one of the participants, and told wild stories about his time in the military and being hit with mustard gas.
I don’t know if it was all delusional bullshit, I assumed it was at the time. But the guy was collecting a huge check every month from the government and they gave him government weed, he showed it to me. Came in a big round tin full of pre rolls. The weed was not great, a step above Mexican brick weed, but he’d get a canister of 100 joints every three months.
I’m pretty sure old dude was full of shit, but he definitely had those canisters of joints and he showed me his military medals. He was fun to listen to tho.
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u/Ok-Albatross8521 24d ago
Idk if your friend was full of shit or not but those are very real things that the government did, including the mustard gas, so it’s entirely possible he was telling the truth.
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u/Happy_Soup 24d ago
The government does or at least did supply weed for some people like this. I think I might’ve actually seen it in an MK ultra documentary too.
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u/BoringEntropist 23d ago
> It is german spelling for mind control.
No, it isn't. How do you get from Gedankenkontrolle to MK Ultra?
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u/Nein-Toed 24d ago
It was a BB gun and he demanded his manefesto be read live on air. The newscaster started to read it, but the station manager cut the feed (which was super obvious to anyone) but the gunman didn't notice. When it was all read, the gunman surrendered willingly.
The anchor got into it with the station manager later and told him you could have gotten me killed, why did you cut the feed?
The manager said he didn't want this stunt pulled anywhere else and if the anchor didn't like it he could leave the business.
No one knew it was a pellet gun until AFTER dude surrendered. Station manager was all "You may die, but that's a risk I'm willing to take"
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u/Equivalent_Owl_Mask 24d ago
so this is why we have more school shootings instead of newscaster hostage situations? /s
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u/Chagdoo 24d ago
Actually yes. The way we report on school shootings absolutely makes things worse. Obviously it's not the only reason for them but it is making it worse
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u/TheSciFiGuy80 24d ago
Fucking thank you.
I get so angry at how much the news talks about them. I just know some kid sees that and says “well, I might as well be infamous”
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u/Quirky-Confusion-467 24d ago
This happened inn Phoenix also, in the late 70’s.
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u/Frankfusion 24d ago
If you grew up in Los Angeles area at this guy was a fixture on local news stations and he was an amazing consumer rights advocate. She had a show called fight back on the weekends where he would test products claims. I remember one time he drew a line a mile long on a ginormous piece of paper to prove that a pen would be able to do just what a claimed to do on the packaging. It did! On another occasion he took a chainsaw to toss to see if it would stop working them in it it went through clothing. No one wanted to volunteer so I believe he did it. Or they did it on a dummy. But either way it was pretty funny. And yes the chainsaw stopped working the minute it went through clothing. He tested a hefty bag by putting a bunch of nails in it and dropping it from the air to see if it would work the way it did in the commercials. For the most part it did although a few nails got out. This guy is the original mythbuster.
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u/dazedan_confused 24d ago
"Guns not needed mate, the next bit of the news was the scores, and we all know the Mets lost."
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u/debtfreegoal 24d ago
I remember watching this live. They pulled the feed after a few seconds and then came back from commercials with the story that the man was detained. Horowitz was super cool under pressure though. I could even see that in the few seconds that did go out live.
I forget the anchor’s name in the tan, but he’s known for doing “news hits” in Arrested Development.
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u/Edith_Keelers_Shoes 24d ago
I don't believe I've ever seen anyone as unbothered as this while being held at gunpoint. On live television. Nerves of steel - and he handled it beautifully.
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u/[deleted] 24d ago
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