These Wild El Paso Clips Actually Aired on National Television

Remember watching reality tv shows like World's Most Amazing Videos or Cops on tv and thinking "man...that was crazy!". Reality shows like were popular on television and occasionally, El Paso & neighboring areas would make appearances for the world to see.

World's Wildest Police Videos showed some infamous El Paso “jewelry thieves”

The story also has a happy ending, but not for the bad guys. Two jewel thieves try to rob a jewelry store on the west side of El Paso and it did not go well. One robber was arrested outside by police while the elderly woman inside the store, armed with a knife, was promptly taken down by the store clerks. We’ve covered exactly where this robbery took place which I could read all about here.

World’s Most Amazing Videos showed Tommy Pearson attempting to jump from El Paso into Mexico

On their episode “Stunts Gone Bad”, they showed Tommy’s attempt to jump the Rio Grande River from El Paso into Sunland Park, New Mexico on July 22, 2000. Obviously, when the episode is called “Stunts Gone Bad”, you can kind of guess what the outcome was…

Thankfully Tommy was ok after the accident. He wouldn’t be the only one to try jumping the Rio Grande, Eddie Wearden did which Dubba G covered in a story here.

The clip of an El Paso man driving into a flooded river has made it on several TV shows

This infamous June 20, 1999 clip of a man desperately trying to cross a flooding river in Horizon City/El Paso has made several compilation TV shows, including World’s Most Amazing Videos. Thankfully, everybody made it ok but is certainly been one of the most well-known clips of some of our best drivers the world has ever seen. The video was shared on an episode of Real TV with extended footage (Just fast forward to the 33-minute mark to see the whole clip).

Speaking of Real TV...

Real TV showed this amazing dog rescue from Canutillo, TX

On the January 8, 2001 episode of Real TV, they showed this clip of these brave citizens rescuing a trapped dog after a mudslide. Not much information was given during the episode, but the most important part was the dog was indeed rescued with no injuries and was given to a loving home afterward. I love a happy ending…

El Paso also had a few starring roles on the television show Cops in the 90s

Wrapping up our list, we certainly cannot leave out these two shows together. Back in an early 90s, El Paso appeared on a couple of episodes of Cops. You could see just how many we’ve been included here.

Later, El Paso would reappear on a police reality show when Live PD would air from 2016-2020. There are so many episodes that feature El Paso, people have even made their own playlists on YouTube. If there was a single TV program that showed the most clips from El Paso, Live PD would probably be up there.

There was another famous Live PD clip that was taken in El Paso; one that actually has helped people change for the better online. You can read that story here. You can also read about how El Paso made it on America's Funniest Home Videos here.

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