Lennon's death: I was there

Tom Brook was the first British journalist to report live from the scene of John Lennon's murder outside the former Beatle's home in New York on 8 December 1980. Here, he gives his personal recollections of what it was like to cover the shooting, and its aftermath for BBC News.

On the evening of 8 December 1980 I was a young inexperienced journalist living in New York who'd recently arrived from London. I was totally unprepared for the drama that would unfold.

It began with a late night phone call from pop impresario Jonathan King, who was then a columnist for BBC Radio 1 living in New York. He told me he'd heard reports of a shooting outside the Dakota, Lennon's home, and that the former Beatle was possibly the victim.

Before long I was racing up 8th Avenue in a taxi and I arrived at the Dakota sometime after 11.00 pm bearing a tape recorder and notepaper.

There was an eerie silence - the street had been cordoned off - there were a couple of police cars outside the entrance to the Dakota - a few people had begun to gather.


Minutes before I arrived at the building, Lennon had been rushed to nearby Roosevelt Hospital - hauled over the shoulder of a policeman. Dr Stephan Lynn and his team at the emergency room worked frantically to try to bring him back to life.

A few days ago Dr Lynn told me exactly what was going on inside the resuscitation room. As he recalled: "He had no signs of life, no blood pressure, no pulse. He was unresponsive. We opened his left chest, I did it, with a scalpel. We made an incision.

"I actually held his heart in my hand as the nurses rapidly transfused blood. I tried to massage the heart as we put blood into his body. We knew that there was no way that we could restore circulation, there was no way that we could repair the massive injury to all of the blood vessels in the body."

Outside the Dakota I was trying to get in touch with my colleagues in Broadcasting House in London where it was before dawn.

There was no breakfast television in those days, radio ruled the morning airwaves but international communications were far from instantaneous. There was no internet, no email, no texting, no mobile phones, in many instances no direct dialling to London.

From a public phone booth not far from the Dakota I managed to get through to Today - the night editor told me to get whatever I could but to make sure I got back in touch by 6.30 am when the programme went on the air.

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