AP WAS THERE: OJ Simpson’s slow-speed chase

News

AP WAS THERE: OJ Simpson’s slow-speed chase

2024-04-11 23:22 Last Updated At：23:30

EDITOR’S NOTE: The first week of the O.J. Simpson case in mid-June 1994 moved quickly, with reporters racing to reach the news. The only thing that was slow was The Chase.

The football great had been accused of killing his ex-wife and her friend, and there he was on live television, in the back of his friend’s white Ford Bronco with a gun to his head. The freeway was like a parade — with the police, media and fans following “The Juice.” There were crowds on the overpasses, signs, cheers and fists punching the air as the pursuit unfolded.

In The Associated Press newsroom, editors and writers were riveted to small televisions. And that’s where many would stay for the next 17 months — glued to a TV as the so-called “Trial of the Century” unfolded.

After Simpson died Wednesday at 76, the AP is making available the story wrapping up all the developments from The Chase.

O.J. Simpson was hunted down and captured in his driveway Friday night after running from charges of murdering his ex-wife and her male friend and leading police along 60 miles of freeways and city streets.

“I can’t express the fear I had that this matter would not end the way it did,” said Simpson’s attorney, Robert Shapiro, who had worried earlier that the former football great would kill himself.

Outside the walls of Simpson’s estate, members of Simpson’s family hugged each other and cried after word of the arrest came out.

A cheer came up from the crowd of 300 spectators.

The arrest shortly before 9 p.m. culminated an incredible drama that unfolded on live national TV in which police first announced charges against the former football great, then said he had disappeared and finally followed him along the highways for more than an hour.

After the white Ford Bronco came to a halt at Simpson’s estate, a man believed to be his lifelong friend and teammate, Al Cowlings, got out. Simpson’s lawyer arrived at the mansion nearly an hour later and the arrest came minutes later.

Before fleeing as he was about to be arrested, the former football great left a handwritten letter proclaiming his innocence, saying goodbye to friends and making “a last wish” to “leave my children in peace.”

Shapiro earlier said he feared Simpson was suicidal and pleaded with him to give up. At the same news conference, a friend read Simpson’s letter.

“I’ve had a great life, great friends,” the football Hall of Famer’s letter said. “Please think of the real O.J. and not this lost person.”

The district attorney called it “the fall of an American hero,” and Los Angeles police, angered that he reneged on a promise to surrender earlier in the day, mounted a manhunt for him and a former teammate.

In the letter, Simpson wrote that he tried to do “most of the right things” in life and asked: “Why do I end up like this?”

“First, everyone understand, I had nothing to do with Nicole’s murder,” Simpson’s letter begins. “If we had a problem, it’s because I loved her so much.”

“I don’t want to belabor knocking the press, but I can’t believe what is being said. Most of it is totally made up. I know you have a job to do, but as a last wish, please, please, please, leave my children in peace,” he wrote.

Shapiro said Simpson has been “exceedingly depressed,” but he didn’t know if Simpson had committed suicide.

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed and praying that we will be able to bring him into a court,” Shapiro said.

“Wherever you are, for the sake of your family, for the sake of your children, please surrender immediately.”

Police immediately mounted a manhunt when Simpson fled, and said he may be armed.

“Mr. Simpson is out there somewhere and we will find him,” Police Cmdr. David Gascon told reporters.

If convicted of killing Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman, Simpson - among the most prominent celebrities ever charged with murder - could face the death penalty.

“We saw, perhaps, the fall of an American hero,” District Attorney Gil Garcetti said.

Simpson, 46, was scheduled to surrender at 11 a.m. but failed to honor the agreement made with Shapiro, Gascon said.

Shapiro said he was with Simpson, Cowlings and two doctors in a house in the San Fernando Valley on Friday morning when police called to say they were coming to arrest him. He said Simpson and Cowlings, who grew up with Simpson in a San Francisco housing project and was his teammate in high school, at the University of Southern California and the Buffalo Bills, vanished before police arrived.

“The Los Angeles Police Department is actively searching for Mr. Simpson,” Gascon said. “The Los Angeles Police Department is also very unhappy with the activities surrounding his failure to surrender.”

Authorities also were looking for Cowlings, Garcetti said, warning, “If you assist him in any way you are committing a felony.”

The investigation was anchored by a grisly array of evidence, from media reports of a blood-stained ski mask to a bloody glove.

Gascon declined to say how the police lost Simpson, who was handcuffed and questioned by police Monday but let go. He had been seen at his house earlier in the week and attended his ex-wife’s funeral Thursday. Someone resembling Simpson was seen driving away from his house an hour before his expected surrender.

Mike Botula, a spokesman for Garcetti, said the charges included the special capital punishment circumstance of multiple killings. There is no bail in such cases, Botula added.

“A final decision on whether we would seek the death penalty will be made at a later time,” Botula said.

Fans and colleagues of the sports legend who had insisted on his innocence were forced by Friday’s arrest warrant to confront an ominous possibility - that Simpson could have killed the mother of their two children, daughter Sydney, 9, and son Justin, 6.

“There’s nothing to say except that the law must take its course,” said Howard Cosell, who worked with Simpson on ABC’s “Monday Night Football.”

The bodies of Mrs. Simpson, the football star’s strikingly beautiful ex-wife, and Goldman, a 25-year-old aspiring model and waiter at a trendy restaurant, were found outside Mrs. Simpson’s posh condominium.

Mortally wounded by multiple stab wounds, the bodies were discovered in a pool of blood by a passerby.

The couple divorced in 1992 following a seven-year marriage. While still married, Mrs. Simpson called police in 1989 saying she feared he was going to kill her. She had been punched, slapped and kicked by Simpson, who pleaded no contest in the case, authorities said.

Some reports suggested the two were attempting to reconcile at the time of the slayings. They had recently been seen together, but a family friend said those attempts failed and Simpson had turned vengeful.

“He was telling her girlfriends and her that if he ever caught her with anyone he would kill her,” the friend told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. “She totally broke it off with him three weeks ago.”

Through his attorneys, Simpson maintained his innocence, claiming he was at home at the time of the slayings, waiting for a limousine to take him to the airport for a flight to Chicago. He attended his wife’s funeral Thursday and hired forensic experts to assist in his defense.

Simpson flew to Chicago the night of the killings and was summoned home by police the next morning.

In filing the charges, authorities painted a grim picture in stark contrast to Simpson’s graceful moves on the football field. Simpson was accused of using a knife to kill Mrs. Simpson and Goldman. The knife hasn’t been found, Garcetti said.

Goldman, his family said, wasn’t romantically involved with Mrs. Simpson. Reports indicated he fought valiantly for his life.

Orenthal James Simpson is known to many as the nimble and powerful running back for the Buffalo Bills, for whom he set a single-season NFL rushing record with 2,003 yards in 1973. He helped make USC a national champion in 1967 and won the Heisman Trophy in 1968.

He also was widely seen as a television sports commentator and in advertisements for Hertz rental cars. He also produced several television movies and had featured roles in such productions as “Roots” and “The Naked Gun” comedies.

After the warrant was announced, Hertz dropped Simpson.

Read the AP's full obit here

Dueling protesters clash at UCLA hours after police clear pro-Palestinian demonstration at Columbia

2024-05-01 19:45 Last Updated At：19:50

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dueling groups of protesters clashed Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another. Hours earlier, police burst into a building at Columbia University that pro-Palestinian protesters took over and broke up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school while inspiring others.

After a couple of hours of scuffles between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields formed lines and slowly separated the groups. That appeared to quell the violence.

Police have swept through campuses across the U.S. over the last two weeks in response to protests calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza. There have been confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests. In rarer instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.

The clashes at UCLA took place around a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters, who erected barricades and plywood for protection — while counter-protesters tried to pull them down. Video showed fireworks exploding over and in the encampment. People threw chairs and at one point a group piled on a person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum.

It was not clear how many people might be injured.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the violence “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable" in a spot on social media platform X and said officers from the Los Angeles Police Department were on the scene. Officers from the California Highway Patrol also appeared to be there. The university said it had requested help.

Security was tightened Tuesday at the campus after officials said there were “physical altercations” between factions of protesters.

Late that same day, New York City officers entered Columbia's campus after the university requested help, according to a statement released by a spokesperson. A tent encampment on the school's grounds was cleared, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window. Protesters seized the hall at the Ivy League school about 20 hours earlier.

“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said. “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing. We have made it clear that the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules and the law.”

A few dozen people were arrested at the building after protesters shrugged off an earlier ultimatum to abandon the encampment Monday or be suspended and unfolded as other universities stepped up efforts to end demonstrations that were inspired by Columbia.

Fabien Lugo, a first-year accounting student who said he was not involved in the protests, said he opposed the university’s decision to call in police.

“This is too intense,” he said. “It feels like more of an escalation than a de-escalation.”

Just blocks away from Columbia, at The City College of New York, demonstrators were in a standoff with police outside the public college’s main gate. Video posted on social media by news reporters on the scene late Tuesday showed officers putting some people to the ground and shoving others as they cleared people from the street and sidewalks.

After police arrived, officers lowered a Palestinian flag atop the City College flagpole, balled it up and tossed it to the ground before raising an American flag.

Brown University, another member of the Ivy League, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they would close their encampment in exchange for administrators taking a vote to consider divestment from Israel in October. The compromise appeared to mark the first time a U.S. college has agreed to vote on divestment in the wake of the protests.

Meanwhile, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, police in riot gear closed in on an encampment late Tuesday and arrested about 20 people for trespassing, at least one of whom was thrown to the ground. University officials had warned earlier in the day that students would face criminal charges if they did not disperse.

First-year student Brayden Lang watched from the sidelines. “I still know very little about this conflict,” he said. “But the deaths of thousands is something I cannot stand for.”

The nationwide campus protests began at Columbia in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.

As cease-fire negotiations appeared to gain steam, it wasn’t clear whether those talks would lead to an easing of protests.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.

Columbia's police action happened on the 56th anniversary of a similar move to quash an occupation of Hamilton Hall by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War.

The police department earlier Tuesday said officers wouldn't enter the grounds without the college administration’s request or an imminent emergency. Now, law enforcement will be there through May 17, the end of the university's commencement events.

In a letter to senior police officials, Columbia President Minouche Shafik said the administration made the request that officers remove protesters from the occupied building and a nearby tent encampment “with the utmost regret.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that police had to move into Hamilton Hall “for the safety of those children.”

He again blamed outside agitators for the building takeover — an idea Shafik has also raised, though neither provided specific evidence to back up the contention, which was disputed by protest organizers and participants.

The police department’s deputy commissioner for public information, Tarik Sheppard, said 40 to 50 people were arrested at Hamilton Hall and that there were no injuries.

Protesters first set up a tent encampment at Columbia almost two weeks ago. The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, arresting more than 100 people, only for the students to return.

Negotiations between the protesters and the college came to a standstill in recent days, and the school set a deadline for the activists to abandon the tent encampment Monday afternoon or be suspended.

Instead, protesters defied the ultimatum and took over Hamilton Hall early Tuesday, carrying in furniture and metal barricades.

Ilana Lewkovitch, a self-described “leftist Zionist” student at Columbia, said it’s been hard to concentrate on school for weeks. Her exams have been disrupted with chants of “say it loud, say it clear, we want Zionists out of here.”

Lewkovitch, who is Jewish, said she wished the current pro-Palestinian protests were more open to people like her who criticize Israel’s war policies but believe there should be an Israeli state.

Offenhartz and Frederick reported from New York. Associated Press journalists around the country contributed to this report, including Cedar Attanasio, Jonathan Mattise, Colleen Long, Karen Matthews, Jim Vertuno, Hannah Schoenbaum, Sarah Brumfield, Christopher Weber, Carolyn Thompson, Dave Collins, Makiya Seminera, Philip Marcelo, Corey Williams and Felicia Fonseca.