By Cailin Acosta
LA MESA, California – Long Shot is a 2017 short documentary film shown on Netflix that is about how Juan Catalan was arrested for a murder he did not commit. The HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm contained raw footage that was instrumental in proving Catalan’s innocence.
The 40-minute documentary went through a night of August 2003 when Catalan was attending the Los Angeles Dodgers versus the Atlanta Braves game with his daughter. During the same time, a neighbor, who was a witness at Catalan’s brother’s hearing, had been shot and according to facial composite and witness description, Juan Catalan fit the profile of the shooter.
Catalan was arrested and sent to Los Angeles County Jail facing first-degree murder charges.
Season 1 episode 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm happened to be filming a section of the show for HBO. In it, the series Jewish star, Larry David, is stuck in typical rush-hour Los Angeles traffic and picks up a hooker so he can go in the carpool lane to make it to the Los Angeles Dodgers game. In the episode, he ends up having to buy the hooker any items she wants from the snack bar and spots a friend a few rows down and asks if he can sit next to him. The friend says no, so David is sent back up to his seat.
In the clip of him trudging up to his seat, Catalan is seen with his daughter coming back from getting ice cream.
A Long Shot! Catalan was acquitted and released from jail. If David had not been filming that night, Catalan would have had no alibi and would probably be facing the death penalty for a crime he did not commit.
The film drives home the necessity to be aware of your surroundings. If you attend a baseball game, make sure you keep your ticket stub and receipts since David can’t save us all from a murder.
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Cailin Acosta is the assistant editor of the San Diego Jewish World.
That was the sixth episode from the fourth season of Curb (ie, S4E6).