In the middle of a hostage crisis, two desperate gunmen asked TV reporter Russ Ewing to help them work out a surrender.
During an uprising at maximum-security Indiana State Prison, inmates requested his help in negotiating a peace.
In all, more than 100 people turned themselves in to the newsman. They sought to clear their names, or to atone, or just get it over with. They also wanted to avoid a bruising capture by law enforcement. Mr. Ewing would film their unmarked bodies before escorting them to the police, according to Eugene Stanback, his frequent camera operator.
“If I take a picture of you, and I can show that you haven’t got a scratch on you, then if you do come up with some scratches, it’s to your advantage,” Mr. Ewing once told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Mr. Ewing, who worked for decades at NBC 5 and ABC 7, died Tuesday at 95 at his home in Paw Paw, Michigan, according to friends. He found out in October that he had bladder cancer, said Patricia L. Arnold, who produced many of his broadcasts for ABC 7.
“He was unafraid of just about anything,” said ABC 7 reporter Paul Meincke.
“Russ Ewing is truly a legend among Chicago TV journalists,” said Alan Krashesky, anchor-reporter at ABC 7. “He put his own personal safety on the line, dozens of times in his career, to negotiate the peaceful surrenders of criminal suspects.”
“He wasn’t flashy, he wasn’t flamboyant. He was just meat and potatoes,” Meincke said. “He was earthy and honest.”
Mr. Ewing was a sympathetic mediator, confessor and psychologist, and it made the people he interviewed on the street love him, especially in African American neighborhoods, said Stanback, who worked 39 years as a camera operator at WLS. “I remember going out into the neighborhood, and in 15 minutes we could put together a package,” he said. “People would say, ‘It’s Russ Ewing! Russ, you want to talk to the mom [of a suspect or victim]? She’s around the corner! You need a picture [of the people involved]? Here’s a picture.’ ”
He was involved in countless risky situations, Meincke said. “He had some real, real scary ones, and (camera) crews would always be forewarned that Russ was going to be dealing with somebody who was wanted by police,” he said, “but they trusted him.”
In fact, “They trust him” was the simple caption under Mr. Ewing’s photo in a 1992 Associated Press article about the many suspects who turned themselves in to him, with the headline, “Murderers prefer to surrender to Chicago TV reporter.’’
“Ewing says he gets calls from other criminals,” the article said, “but is so busy he limits himself to killers.”
“Most have been in prison and aren’t afraid of going back. Some are afraid of going to prison, the young ones are. They shot someone and didn’t intend to do it,” Mr. Ewing said. “Some claim they didn’t do it. Some just want someone to talk to.”
He recalled one of his scariest surrenders in a 1995 interview with the Sun-Times. “This guy who had shot a couple of people in Gary called, wanting to turn himself in. He was hiding out in an old water-soaked shack. I went up, and he’s sitting there with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a .357 magnum, fully loaded. He said, `Russ, I’m going to prison for the rest of my life. I want to shoot my gun before I go.’ I asked, `You got anybody in mind?’
“We talked, we laughed, and he got the gun and fired three shots into the ceiling. Plaster was falling everyplace, and I looked at him and said, `Hey, that looks like fun. Let me try it.’ He gave me the gun, and I fired three shots into the ceiling. I said, `You got any more bullets?’ He said no, and I was happy as hell.”
In 1995 — when he retired after 14 years at ABC 7 and 15 prior years at NBC 5 — he’d been recognized with a Lisagor award, nine Emmys and two city of Chicago Medals of Merit. The Sun-Times had singled him out in an editorial for his “courage and diplomatic skill” in persuading two hold-up suspects to release two women hostages.
At the time, he said 114 people had surrendered to him. One murder suspect arranged to hand himself over to Mr. Ewing after seeing himself on “America’s Most Wanted.”
A gifted raconteur, Mr. Ewing said he told WLS officials that he’d decided to retire “because a guy has moved into my house and I can’t get him out.” Asked who “the guy” was, he replied: “Father Time.”
But Father Time didn’t prevent NBC from coaxing him back in 1998 as a special contributor.
In 1997, he was inducted into the Silver Circle of the Chicago Television Academy. In 2003, the Chicago Association of Black Journalists recognized him by creating the Russ Ewing Excellence in Journalism Awards and Scholarship Presentation.
If all that weren’t enough, he also was a talented pianist, a pilot and a former city firefighter.
At 20, “There was an airport [near] 93rd and Harlem, and he went there and took flight lessons,” Arnold said, “and then he bought his own plane.”
Mr. Ewing started at NBC 5 in 1964 as a courier. Three years later he started reporting on air, according to The HistoryMakers. He investigated social security fraud, political corruption, unfair credit policies and conditions at the city animal shelter. He credited TV news pioneers Len O’Connor and Floyd Kalber with helping his career.
In 1980, he conducted the first interview with John Wayne Gacy after his murder convictions. The serial killer told Mr. Ewing an alter ego had guided him when he committed the murders of 33 youths.
Six years later, Mr. Ewing helped uncover the identity of Gacy victim Timothy McCoy. After listening to the concerns of McCoy’s relatives, he obtained dental records and contacted forensic officials, resulting in the ID.
Another time, while working on a story in New York City, he stayed at a seedy hotel with a communal washroom. Another guest warned he’d better hide his shoes if he wanted to keep them from being stolen. “He had to take his shoes into the shower,” Arnold said.
For years, he had a Steinway piano in his living room, she said. Friends said he could play anything from ear, and he even headed a group, the Russ Ewing Trio.
Orphaned at 2, he was raised near 42nd and Champlain “by people I refer to as my aunt and uncle,” he once told the Sun-Times. Young Russ went to Englewood High School.
His wife, Ruth, died in 2004. He used to say they met in kindergarten. She worked as a librarian at Englewood High School, Arnold said.
Mr. Ewing acknowledged his negotiating efforts held some risk. “When you do something like that and it works, you’re a hero,” he told the AP in 1976. “When it doesn’t, you’re dead.”
