Hundreds of Jackson fans converge on hospital

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-26 11:26

Fans remember Michael Jackson at the star they believe belongs to pop star Michael Jackson but that belongs to a radio personality of the same name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Thursday June 25, 2009 in Los Angeles.[Agencies]

LOS ANGELES – Across the country, people reacted in stunned disbelief Thursday as word spread that Michael Jackson had collapsed and died.

Within minutes of Jackson's arrival by ambulance at UCLA Medical Center people began arriving by the hundreds, the crowd quickly filling a grassy entrance outside the hospital. As word spread that Jackson had been pronounced dead, several people burst into tears. Others simply stood in disbelief. Still others whipped out cell phones and began calling or texting friends.

At Times Square in New York, where people had begun gathering as word spread that Jackson had fallen ill, a collective groan went up from the crowd as the words announcing his death flashed across a giant TV screen.

During Los Angeles' notoriously slow-paced rush-hour commute, Jackson's music could be heard blaring from several cars along busy Wilshire Boulevard.

"I'm in shock. He's gone. The legend of music," Becky Williams said in disbelief as she stood outside Jackson's home in Los Angeles' tony Holmby Hills neighborhood. Williams, 26, of Salt Lake City, had been visiting her sister, who lives down the street.

Another neighbor, Roxana Radnia, was driving past Jackson's home when she saw an ambulance.

"I was just listening to his music, to 'Thriller,' yesterday on my iPod," said Radnia, 21. "And now this. It's surreal."

Outside the hospital, as news spread that Jackson had died, Seth Casteel pulled out an iPod and began playing Jackson's song "Heal the World" at full volume.

As the crowd at the hospital increased by the minute, police and security officers in plainclothes quickly blocked off entrances. When word spread that a news conference was scheduled for a hospital auditorium hundreds of people tried to rush in and police had to quickly shut it down.

Back in Holmby Hills, cars — many of them with stereo systems blaring songs from "Thriller" and other classic Jackson albums — began to clog the streets. As people began to abandon the vehicles to snap pictures of the home, a police officer used a loudspeaker to warn that their cars would be towed.

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