A distraught Yoko Ono leaving Roosevelt Hospital in New York City on the night of December 8, 1980. She is being supported by record executive David Geffen. Police officers transported John Lennon to Roosevelt Hospital in a patrol car after being shot by Mark Chapman, but he was pronounced dead on arrival.
“Even though it’s been more than 40 years, it’s a scene I’ll never forget. There was blood everywhere and one of the doctors had his hands inside Lennon’s chest and he could see him moving them to pump his heart. From there I went behind the ambulance to the hospital where the song ‘All My Loving’ just happened to be playing. The song ends and by the minute you hear a woman’s screams. I open the doors of a room and I see Yoko Ono leave crying inconsolably in the arms of music producer David Geffen. Then I knew it was all over.” – Alan Weiss, the reporter responsible for informing the world that John Lennon had been murdered.
On December 8, 1980, Alan Weiss, a producer for WABC-TV, was at Roosevelt Hospital for treatment after a motorcycle accident. While on a gurney, he overheard police officers mentioning John Lennon’s name as the shooting victim was brought into the emergency room. He managed to get a look at the scene and confirm the information. Weiss found a phone and called the news into his station’s assignment desk. This information was then relayed to the ABC network, who famously had Howard Cosell announce the tragedy during a Monday Night Football broadcast to a national audience. Weiss went on to win an Emmy Award for his coverage of the story. The events of that night, including Weiss’s role, were later depicted in the 2016 feature film The Lennon Report.
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