On June 17, 1994, the world screeched to a halt so 95 million Americans could watch a white SUV crawl through L.A. Today, we finally talk about the infamous Bronco chase, the men inside the car and the myth they left behind. Digressions include “The Fugitive,” Larry King and Jack Nicholson twice. Like previous episodes about the events of this day, this episode discusses suicidal ideation.
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Where else to find us:
Sarah's other show, Why Are Dads
Mike's other show, Maintenance Phase
On June 17, 1994, the world screeched to a halt so 95 million Americans could watch a white SUV crawl through L.A. Today, we finally talk about the infamous Bronco chase, the men inside the car and the myth they left behind. Digressions include “The Fugitive,” Larry King and Jack Nicholson twice. Like previous episodes about the events of this day, this episode discusses suicidal ideation.
Support us:
Subscribe on Patreon
Donate on Paypal
Buy cute merch
Where else to find us:
Sarah's other show, Why Are Dads
Mike's other show, Maintenance Phase
The O.J. Simpson Trial: The Bronco Chase
Sarah: And I feel like, you know, I'm doing this. I'll say something now kind of knowing as I'm saying it, that it's going to inspire fan art. And so I'm really hoping for like a vintage, tourism, Joshua Tree, vaginas poster.
So anyway, all right. Shall we?
Mike: I've got one. I'm ready to go. I mean, I've had 18 months to think about it, so of course I have a tagline.
Sarah: It’s been eight months which is the length of the OJ Simpson trial, itself. So if you feel like it has been forever since we started telling the story, imagine how you would feel if you were sequestered for this whole time. You're welcome.
Mike: Are you ready?
Sarah: Yes.
Mike: Okay. Welcome to You're Wrong About, the podcast that takes you away from home, but always brings you back.
Sarah: Oh, that’s so good. You knocked that one out of the park. I just heard the clean crack of the bat against the ball. And this is like our 90th episode, or something like that. And you know, we used to do one episode every two weeks, and now we have one or two episodes per week and I'm really enjoying it.
Mike: The majority of our correspondence is still about all the words that I'm mispronouncing. So some things change, some things don't. I am Michael Hobbes, I'm a reporter for the Huffington Post.
Sarah: I'm Sarah Marshall. I'm working on a book about the Satanic Panic.
Mike: We are on Patreon at patreon.com/yourewrongabout. And there's lots of other ways to support the show. And there's also ways to not support the show.
Sarah: And you can also support the show at spiritually by giving money to sex workers.
Mike: Yes. Or whatever else you want to support. And we think that's chill and good. And today. Oh, my God. We're talking about like the biggest, the most anticipated television event in the history of this podcast, we are finally talking about the infamous Bronco chase.
Sarah: We are. I'm so happy. Don't you feel like we're a soap opera that has arrived at a wedding or something?
Mike: I was going to say, I feel like we're jumping the shark.
Sarah: Probably, but then I feel like at the end of this episode, people will feel either satisfied or disappointed or whatever. And then they'll look up and be like, Oh, and then there's a trial too. I would love for you to think back over the previous nine episodes that we've done, and just, like just telling me what you think are salient points.
Mike: Well, we followed OJ and Nicole's relationship as it became abusive and then more abusive and then culminated in him committing the murder of her and Ron Goldman. We've had Marcia Clark, who's a prosecutor, and in the passenger seat of this investigation, but is trying to reach over and grab the wheel.
Sarah: Nice.
Mike: And when last we left the story, OJ was basically amassing a big legal team to start fighting this. And I don't even know which episode we talked about this in, but he had departed on the Bronco chase with his friend AC Cowlings planning to kill himself. And then they went to the place where Nicole was buried, but there were too many media there. And then he was going to kill himself in the car, but then AC sort of saw him and he decided not to. And that's where we left them, sort of in the midst of this long, slow, weird chase.
Sarah: Where they have been suspended for a very long time. Great summarizing. And my plan after we're done with this episode is to take kind of an OJ hiatus, and then pick up the story again and like a season two. And so we're going to talk about what was going on in Bob Kardashians house immediately leading up to the Bronco case. First, we're going to return to one of our gospels, which is the gospel of Paula. I mean, first of all, bringing us up to speed about because who is Paula Barbieri. And what do you remember about the way OJ kind of said goodbye to her before the Bronco chase begins.
Mike: Paula Barbieri was OJ’s girlfriend, who he was seeing before the death of Nicole. He had basically decided to stop seeing her after all of this happened.
Sarah: I'm going to rewind and replay for you Paula Barbie area's goodbye scene with OJ as she depicted it. Because I want to compare it to them, to what we learn according to a different source.
So she says AC hands her like $2,000 in cash, and he says, “OJ wanted me to give you this so you can get on a plane and go home. OJ Is walking Paula out to her friend Tom's Jeep. And Paula is saying, “I love you. I love you. I'll be there for you.” OJ opened the Jeep’s passenger door. A gentleman to the end, I thought grimly, and closed it after me. I held my hand up to the window and OJ put his long fingers up to mine. Then OJ said goodbye to me in a way I'd never want to hear again. He reminded me of a boy I'd known back in high school, the class valedictorian and a rock solid Christian. Whenever OJ claimed that all men cheated, I point to that young man as proof that he was wrong. “Now, you promise me something,” OJ said through the closed window, “You promise me that you'll get out of California and go back to Panama City and marry that guy back home.” And then the car pulls away.
Mike: It's very Casablanca. Isn't it?
Sarah: It is so, okay. We are now going to turn to an American Tragedy by Lawrence Schiller, which I am very excited to tell you used many sources and is basically the book chronicling the defense team, but is most essentially the gospel according to Bob Kardashian. Who is Bob Kardashian?
Mike: David Schwimmer.
Sarah: For those who don't know what that means, help us out.
Mike: He's OJ’s friend, who is a lawyer, but not like a lawyer, lawyer. And he acts as OJ’s personal life coach throughout this, and is like tangentially on his legal team, but it's not like a key a member of his legal team.
Sarah: Yeah. Or he's like key in that he seems to be the one who is like OJ's kind of buddy. And he is Kim's dad, also.
Mike: Yes. Kim Kardashian. Yep.
Sarah: Yes. And he's the first Kardashian. He's like the little foot’s mom of Kardashians.
Mike: I can tell you’ve been on a Don Bluth kick lately.
Sarah: Yeah. I really have. All right. Mike, would you like to hear about the David Schwimmer cameo in this?
Mike: Really? What?
Sarah: Yes. Okay. I shall read to you now from Jeffrey Toobin's, The Run of His Life, which tells us that Bob Shapiro was assembling a world-class team of experts for the defense team in the week following the murders. And so he does this wooing partly by flying them first class, putting them up in I believe the Beverly Wilshire hotel. If Bob Shapiro wants you on his defense team, he will give you the experience that Richard Gere gives to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
And so one of the things that he does to charm a medical expert that he's just flown in and is trying to get on the defense team, is that he takes him to the premiere of a new Jack Nicholson movie called Wolf, which has a role played by a very young actor at the start of his career named David Schwimmer. Isn’t that so satisfying to know? And then David Schwimmer will of course go on to play Bob Kardashian in The People versus OJ Simpson, the Ryan Murphy show.
Mike: And the world will go on to forget the existence of the movie Wolf entirely.
Sarah: Okay. So American Tragedy, the Lawrence Schiller book, has OJ and Paula Barbieri standing in the side yard holding each other. “I want you to leave”, Simpson said. She was teary and defiant. “I'm not leaving.” “I don't want you to see this. Look, I didn't do this thing. I love you. And I want you to stay strong. I'll be alright.” AC has some money to get you back to Florida. They give her the money and the book says, Paula was crying, but wouldn't get in the car. “AC, give her the money and get her out of here”, Simpson said, almost angrily. Kardashian and Cowlings half escorts/half bodyguards, got Paula in the car. It was embarrassing. Paula is herself and OJ is having this fairly prolonged sweet moment. Where he's, you remember that guy you told me about back home? Find him. Marry him instead. And then this version, OJ basically just trying to get rid of her.
Mike: But which one do you think is more plausible?
Sarah: I am inclined to believe the substance of what Paula is saying, but maybe not that it happened so nicely as she depicted it. You know, he's like, he's been pretty heavily sedated this week. He's not making a ton of sense. He's seeming kind of affectly. Plus it's interesting that Paula writes a scene where he's able to really show up for her. But on the other hand, he's historically able to do that kind of thing kind of on autopilot. So like, it seems likelier to me that like the men writing a book about like the defense team who seemed like very uninterested in Paula, generally, like she's barely depicted in this. Like I'm more ready to believe that like it happened, but that like Paula's version of it makes it maybe nicer than it was.
Mike: Yeah. Or they had that conversation two days previously and she sort of deported it into the scene because it's like, it's narratively more convincing that way.
Sarah: That's true too. That happens a lot in memoir and in the way that we remember things, like we unprompted we'll, I think subconsciously kind of stitched together parts of different memories to make a coherent story that kind of depicts the whole of a relationship. And if she's giving herself that moment at all inaccurately, then like whatever.
Mike: Sure. Yeah. So let's talk about what happens after Paula leaves. All right. So it's June 17th. OJ has been staying in Bob Kardashian’s house that week because the media doesn't know where it is. And so they can't find him and surveil him. He left his house in Rockingham when he, when he realized it was possible for the media to like take pictures of him and other people through the windows in the house, potentially. So the morning of Friday, the 17th. The house is woken up by Bob Shapiro, calling to talk to Bob Kardashian. The two Bobs are conferring. Bob Shapiro says I've got bad news. They've issued an arrest warrant for OJ. He has to surrender by 11. And immediately Bob Kardashian, by his own account is like, do you want me to tell him? And Shapiro is like, why don't you wait until I get there. So Bob Kardashian tells his fiancé, Denise, who tells him he should call AC to sort of get someone around that could have like a cooling effect on OJ. Because AC is OJ's best and oldest friend. And Denise also is like, why don't you get the guns out of the house, Bob. And Bob was like, ‘Yeah, I agree’.
Mike: It's all kind of darkly funny because in this is an implicit acknowledgement that OJ has an insane temper and could blow up and do something violent and impulsive. Which is exactly what he's being accused of in the murder of Nicole.
Sarah: It's a very good point.
Mike: It's almost like an acknowledgement that OJ, yeah, could have done this. Like we all kind of know.
Sarah: Yeah. What's what people seem to be describing is just this general. And maybe this fear that they themselves are not really trying to name, but of just like, oh, some various things could happen.
And so Bob Shapiro gets to Bob Kardashian’s house, the two Bobs are united. They like take their Bob rings and put them together and are like, “Form of like, gently delivering bad news.” And then they go up to OJ’s room and Bob Shapiro is like, “OJ, the police have called me and you're going to have to turn yourself in.” And according to Kardashian, OJ just like basically doesn't react. And Shapiro's like, “They're going to charge you with double murder, and you have to surrender yourself by 11 o clock this morning”, and it's like nine. And then Bob Shapiro says, “If you have anything you want to tell us OJ, this is the time. This is the last time you are going to be alone with your attorneys with no eavesdropping.” And according to American Tragedy, OJ says, “I've told you everything before, I've got nothing to hide.” And then he starts talking about how he can't understand why they're not looking for other people. Obviously, these murders had to be committed by two people.
Mike: Yeah. Colombian drug traffickers, favorite myths involved. We all know the much more convincing version of this story.
Sarah: It was the Colombian drug traffickers that are after Faye Resnick. And anyway, so Bob Shapiro, I mean, well, okay. Let's imagine you have Bob Shapiro's job in this moment, first of all, congratulations and I'm sorry. What do you do if you like, you go up to inform your client and you're like, the police needed to turn yourself in and a couple of hours, they're going to charge you with double murder. So if you have anything to say to me before you go to jail, where you probably will be held without bail, just please tell me now. And if your client immediately is like, I don't know why this is happening, why aren't they looking for two people? I've already told you everything. Like what, what do you do?
Mike: I mean, I struggled to put myself in the shoes of Bob Shapiro.
Sarah: Because you wouldn't have taken this job. Because you're like, why would I be doing any of this?
Mike: Like, first of all, I would be trimming my eyebrows. Secondly, I would not be representing somebody like OJ Simpson.
Sarah: Secondly, I would be massaging whatever they put into catcher’s mitts to make them supple on my face.
Mike: I mean, I don't know. I mean, there's in the whole thing with lawyering that like, you have to believe your client, even if it's a little far-fetched.
Sarah: Yeah. I mean, Bob Shapiro is not mandated to use a defense dictated by what his client says. And initially he's going to be like, OJ, what if we go for diminished capacity? That could work. Right? And OJ’s like, no, I need a lawyer who believes in my innocence. And like, that is probably the most significant reason why Bob Shapiro gets pushed out and Johnny Cochran emerges as OJ’s most important lawyer. But yeah, Bob Shapiro alienates himself from OJ pretty early in the game by not being faithful enough to OJ’s emotional realities, basically.
You know, at this point, you know, they spent a few days kind of talking, I think he can gather that OJ is like, very attached to his version of events and that it's like integral to his identity that he's not the bad guy. Like that seems pretty clear. And so I think that if I were Bob Shapiro, I would be like, I am not going to try and take this thing away from you because your whole self has been built around it. But then I'm thinking like a journalist, right? That's what journalists do. I don't know if that's useful to a lawyer. I mean, this is basically me saying, like, if I were a lawyer, that's what I would have done, but I don't know if I would have been a very good lawyer.
Mike: That's where I am, too.
Sarah: So I guess we have a good job for what we are. So anyway, Bob Shapiro chooses the option of accepting OJ’s response being like, Hmm. And then being like, I've got doctors and nurses on the way we're going to take some blood samples and some hair samples. He just, he kind of catches the subject, which I feel like is the response of the person who doesn't know how to respond throughout time.
Mike: Yes. As we remind ourselves every Thanksgiving.
Sarah: So, OJ also suddenly seems to remember something and it's like, I've got to take care of my kids. I have to make some calls. And then suddenly he does start acting as if he might be preparing to shake off this mortal coil. It's ambiguous because he could be preparing to go into jail, but he's also, he's writing these letters that are ambiguously suicide notes. They have some of the content of suicide notes, but they're not totally explicit. Before any of that happens though, before, OJ writes these notes that eventually are going to be read to the American people later that day, OJ finds a tape recorder of Bob Kardashians and he starts recording a message on there. Kind of like how Felicity on Felicity would send cassette tape journals to the Janeane Garofalo character.
We have a transcription of this in American Tragedy, I'm going to read to you from it. ‘OJ says, ooh boy, “I don't know how I ended up here. There's apparently a long pause. And then he says, I thought I lived a great life. I thought I treated everybody well. I went out of my way to make everybody comfortable and happy. I felt very lonely at times in recent years, and I don't know what it is. I mean, I had a loving girl in Paula. My kids love me, everybody loved me, but I don't know why I was feeling so alone all the time. Look where I am. I'm ‘The Juice’, whatever that means. But I felt at times, like I was, ah, I felt goodness in myself. I don't feel any goodness of myself right now. I feel emptiness. I don't even know what I'm saying here”.’ And the whole tape is about 10 minutes long.
Mike: God, thank you for not reading the whole thing. It sounds like Michelle, just these like long monologues with like these weird, repeated phrases.
Sarah: Yeah. People are not very entertaining when they're in their depths. And then he closes with, he seems to kind of return to public OJ at the end he says, “Treat everybody the way you want to be treated and know your friends. Share your pain with your friends. If I had made one mistake right now, I'd realize that I didn't share my pain. And I think that's where I made my mistake.”
Mike: Oh God.
Sarah: “Please remember me as ‘The Juice’. Please remember me as a good guy. I don't want you to remember me as whatever negative that might end here.” What do you think about that?
Mike: So boring. It's like, so morose and self-pitying and completely at the same time, refusing to take any responsibility for any of his own decisions that put him in this place. Like, why are you lonely? Well, I don't know, because you beat your wife consistently for 18 years, to the point where she hates you. And it's hard to spend time with your kids now. Why are you lonely? Because you have a history of having these superficial relationships with people that are just built around you being a celebrity and no actual interest in them. Yeah. You've created a cage for yourself and it's really lonely in this cage.
Sarah: Yeah. I think it's like the authentic sadness of someone totally without perspective because he's like, I am so sad because of what happened. What's interesting is that like, he seems to be in anguish, but like there's no direct evidence of guilt. Like he's very sad about he's like, I don't feel any goodness in myself. Like I don't feel like a good guy and it's like, yes, you're not, right now because you murdered people. So yes, that identity has been taken away from you, but like, is that the reason that you're sad?
Mike: Like that's what remorse is supposed to feel like. Like you're supposed to feel bad.
Sarah: It feels like the evidence that he doesn't get it, you know, that he's like, this is about me and my pain and it's like, ah, it's not, but like, that's why you killed them in the first place because your emotions, however fleeting, were bigger than like two people's rights to continue existing.
Mike: It's also so funny how he's like, man, I just, I wish I would have talked about this more and it's like, it sounds like you talked about it a lot and that he was really boring to hang out with.
Sarah: That's a good point. You're right. He did.
Mike: It's like if only I had whined more, it's like, no, you, you whined plenty. Like that seems like the overwhelming experience of hanging out with you.
Sarah: If only I hadn't called Kato into the house more and then told him to watch football with me and then talk to him over the football.
Mike: And told every woman within five minutes I wanted to date, I was lonely. I was like, if only I had leaned in harder to the like I'm lonely pitch.
Sarah: Yeah. Okay. So, OJ does this recording and then he kind of does start doing practical stuff. Like he calls Nicole's parents and he's like, I want you to become guardians of our children. The medical experts come and start examining OJ because Shapiro wants them to photograph his body before he's taken into custody. Do you know why they're doing that?
Mike: Is that in case he's beaten by the cops?
Sarah: That's a really good guess. No, that doesn't come up. What they're doing is trying to take photographs of his body to show that he is uninjured. Which they are going to argue as proof that he wasn't the assailant who killed Ron and Nicole. Because they're like, how could their killer have escaped unscathed except for this big cut on his finger?
Mike: Except for the blood he was dripping on his way home.
Sarah: Except for that. Ignore, ignore that. This is what I like about Bob Shapiro though. Like when he takes a job, he's like, Bing, bang, boom. Let's get this defense team together. Let's fly people in and put them at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Let's do a second autopsy.
Mike: Every hen house, doghouse, treehouse for 500 miles. He's doing the Tommy Lee Jones thing.
Sarah: I watched that movie a while ago and I was like, these men are in love. Okay. So, OJ, the doctors come to give him a physical. And Bob Kardashian, ever the practical friend, is like OJ, It's like almost 11. You need to turn yourself in to the police by 11. How do you think OJ Simpson reacts?
Mike: I want to say negatively?
Sarah: OJ says, according to Bob Kardashian’s account, “Why should I hurry? What can they do to me?”
Mike: But this is also kind of the weird thing that like, they sent him a calendar invite for an arrest rather than making an arrest. I mean, this is what Marsha's been saying since day one, right? That like why are you being like, well, if it's not too much trouble OJ, can we go ahead and ding dong arrest lee didly-doo-you.
Sarah: For this hom-didily-omicide?
Mike: We're talking about somebody who potentially killed two people. It's very weird that this is all, you know, like he has to go there to pick up his lost watch or something.
Sarah: OJ is like, the LAPD are my pals. They come over and use my tennis court. They ignore me beating my wife.
Mike: The law has never applied to me before. Why should it be now?
Sarah: Yeah. And Bob Kardashian apparently says, “You're right. Take your time. What can they do?” It's like, yep. Good point. Shapiro is like, no OJ, like my word kind of means something, I would like the police to continue to believe me. Like I work with them. So yes, we do have to get you there by 11. Like I'm sorry to ruin the fun. And so, OJ apparently accepts this.
And Bob Shapiro keeps being like, please hurry, because he wants OJ to arrive at Parker Center, “in his Mercedes, well-dressed, calm, dignified.’ If an impatient police contingent found them in Encino, OJ would be hustled away in handcuffs like a common criminal. No one was willing to say the words, but they hung in the air.”
Mike: I mean, yeah, this is, he understands that this is a press event as well as a criminal justice event and that you need to produce images that are congruent with innocence and the perp walk thing, which is bullshit in all circumstances-
Sarah: Yeah. Talk about the perp walk, actually. Cause some people don't hear those words and immediately have a clear mental image.
Mike: Well this thing where they basically parade a suspect from one building to another, as they're in the middle of the arrest process. And it's perfect for allowing the cameras to shoot them. Like these are the paparazzi photos we always see of suspects being marched in one place to another. This is not something that they do in other countries, and this is not something that America has done for a long time. Like this is something that is invented for the newspapers. This is not something that has to be a part of the criminal justice system.
And so it's essentially the police being complicit in the production of images that imply somebody's guilt, which makes things much easier for prosecutors. And so Bob Shapiro understands on some level that like, I don't want my client to be front page of the newspaper looking like, yes, “a common criminal”.
Sarah: Yeah. And Bob Shapiro of course is absolutely right. And I love thinking about, in the same way that I love thinking about Marcia Clark on the morning of June 13th, being like my desk is almost clean and I feel like my life is like calming down. I love thinking about Bob Shapiro on the morning of June 17th being like, okay, OJ, just like really the last thing we want is for the police to have to come and pick you up and for the media to get images of you handcuffed being taken into Parker Center. Like that is the worst thing I can think of.
Mike: Good thing there’s no chance of some kind of nationwide media event that highlights OJ’s potential guilt.
Sarah: So anyway, they're doing the exam. They're trying to keep the mood light. Bob Kardashian makes a joke that Reebok called and asked OJ not to wear their shoes for the arrest. No one laughed. So I love that Bob Kardashian and Kato Kaelin are both the kind of like archetypical, like member of a big family, jokester holder together of things.
Mike: Yeah. The comedy waiters of our story.
Sarah: Yeah. The police call again, and they put the police on with Saul Faerstein, the psychiatrist. They also put Saul Faerstein on the phone with Marcia. Like they appear to just be passing the phone to him and being like Saul, waste some time, just to say some stuff. And so they put the police on with Saul and he's like, I can't give you the address. I'm sorry. And the detective Saul is talking to says that they've issued an arrest warrant. So that means you're harboring a fugitive. So Bob Shapiro takes the phone and finally gives them Bob Kardashian’s address. And so the cops are coming now.
Mike: Okay. So we've got a hard deadline.
Sarah: And like they've annoyed the police because the police want to have a press conference. And be done with it and they keep having to put it off. And so they feel that this is making them look bad.
Mike: Which it is, yes. Also accurate. And also, you know, it feels like it's OJ’s denial, right? Like he has to also be like, this isn't a serious matter. And at this point, Bob Shapiro tells Bob Kardashian, like the cops are coming, get OJ ready. Get him to shower, put them in a nice suit.
Mike: You need to put him in the nineties pants that are way too big that everybody wore.
Sarah: That'll make them look trustworthy. It's got some huge Docker. So he sees off Paula and then Bob Kardashian finds OJ sitting in the room where he has been sleeping, which is one of Bob's daughter's rooms, this book doesn't specify in the Ryan Murphy show, it is Kim's bedroom. Picture a lot of scrunchies lying around. That's what I picture. Bob comes in and sees that OJ is holding a gun and feels that OJ is potentially going to commit suicide. And so he's like, “let's pray”, which seems like a good hostage negotiator/killing time tactic. And, but it doesn't really seem to work and OJ is still talking about suicide.
Finally, Bob Kardashian says, look, you know, it's between you and God. I think it's wrong. I don't think you should do this. But I can't do anything to stop you. “As he talks, Kardashian wonders why he is so accommodating. Why isn't he stronger?” Why doesn't he go after the gun? Because he's played by David Schwimmer, “But something else is at work here. An iron sense of fatalism. OJ is looking at two very bad choices. Either he kills himself, Kardashian assumes, or he goes to prison and endures unimaginable humiliation. To a superstar athlete who feeds off mass attention, public disgrace would be unbearable.”
And then begins this absolutely weird sequence where Bob Kardashian seems to be slowly trying to wind OJ down and talk him out of killing himself by finding fault with all of the places OJ picks in which to kill himself.
Mike: Oh, so he's critiquing the logistics? Like don't do it there.
Sarah: I'll read you some of the scene first. He's like, I'm going to kill myself in this room”, and then Bob's like, “You can't, this is my daughter's room.”
Mike: That's fair.
Sarah: And then they go outside and he's like, well, maybe I'll do it here. Then he's like, no, these bushes are too close to the house. And then Bob is like, okay, let's walk a little.
Mike: This is like, not funny, but it's darkly funny.
Sarah: Yeah. I feel like it is in the way of you're like, go Bob Kardashian! Like he just has to do such ridiculous stuff to try and play for time. And it feels like having a child who's like trying to run away and you're like, don't forget to pack all these canned goods. You will never make it without that. And you're like trying to figure out how to make the little suitcase too heavy for them to carry.
And so they're like outside the house and Bob's like, “Why don't you kill yourself in the yard out here? That way you'd be away from the house a little bit.” And then OJ says, I'd be baking in the sun. I don't want to bake in the sun. And at this point he's actually kind of contradicting him. So he's kind of almost trying to talk him into it. He's like, you're not going to be here. You're going to be gone and your spirit will be gone. What do you care if you're baking in the sun? And OJ’s like, I just don't want to be baking in the sun. And so they're like, okay.
Mike: Championship contrarianism. Someone's like, I don't want to kill myself for this reason. And you're like, eh, that's not that good of a reason.
Sarah: It's very, like, I guess feels very like a moment of, true friendship, you know, whatever else you can say about the contents of it, where like they keep walking around and then he's like, I'll kill myself there. And then Bob's like, no, that's like right in front of the picture window in the living room. That way I can't sit in the living room without thinking about you killing yourself, you can't do it there. This goes on for a really long time. I kind of like, I feel bad for laughing, but it's really weird. Right?
Mike: So it’s also actually very wise. Because my understanding is that what we know about suicide is that it's much more impulsive than intentional. And so if you can delay somebody from killing themselves for like a night and oftentimes the impulse passes.
Sarah: Right. It's just like getting him through the moment. And Bob's like, why don't you go to the Bel Air Church? You were married there. And so he's like, great, I'll go there and kill myself.
And so Bob Kardashian has been playing along to this point, but now that Simpson’s, like, yeah okay. AC will take me there. Let's do this. Bob is like, no, we can't, we can't let this happen. And he's like, AC, we've got to stop him. And finally, Bob kind of like gives it up to God. He's like, you take care of him AC, you're in charge now. And then he's like, let's all take pictures.
Mike: What, like they’re at Disneyland?
Sarah: I think he's just playing for time. I think Bob Kardashian is just like, “Ah, pictures and then next he'll be like, Ovaltine, you can't leave without Ovaltine”. So they take these pictures.
“Now Kardashian turns his back on his friend of 24 years, ‘A man should be allowed to kill himself if he wants to’, he grows to himself. Kardashian walks upstairs to rejoin the doctors. The police should be here any minute. His last act as a friend is to leave the athlete alone, to define his life as he wishes.” And I believe you might know what happens next.
Mike: So they take these photos, Kardashian goes upstairs, and then the next thing they know, OJ and AC are gone.
Sarah: Yeah. Bob Kardashian may have let his license lapse, but he's still enough of a lawyer to be like, well, I wouldn't know anything about anything that's transpired in the last 20 minutes, would I. So then they're gone. The police show up. They're like, we'd like to take OJ in now. They look for him. They can't find him. They realize AC is gone, too. And then the news breaks that he's gone.
And let me actually, let me share some video with you now. So we're skipping ahead a little bit to when the white Bronco was first broadcast on the news. Because the first news helicopter to find the Bronco was piloted by Zoey and Marika Tur, who were experienced helicopter journalists in LA. And helicopter journalism was apparently a pretty robust field there because people in Los Angeles were used to televised car chases, and it was something that I think people in the Los Angeles area were apparently used to at the time, but that nationally was weird for people. And so it was this kind of like novel thing where like something from LA suddenly like jumps to a national experience, which I guess also happens with like weird doughnuts and stuff.
Mike: This was the first step in the path that led to those Fox specials on like the most dangerous car chases or whatever.
Sarah: Yeah. And, and also, you know, the cops genre, Cops had been around for a few years at the time, but this is like the rickety roller coaster that we are now trapped on.
Mike: Crime as entertainment.
Sarah: Crime as entertainment and also like, the American viewers love of sort of the communal viewing experience and of processing news as a live event. And this is a really powerful example of this because this was, you know, first picked up by choppers in LA, broadcast around the country. There was an NBA playoff game happening that, you know what I'm going to show you is that game being cut into by this Bronco chase. And then you can keep watching it and like the tiny TV, the picture in a picture. But it's very hard to fall on basketball that way. This was something that was deemed by various turners of whatever switches needed to be turned for this to happen, worthy of being seen by what turned out to be an audience of 95 million people.
Mike: Whoa, that's a third of the country
Sarah: Isn’t that incredible? For context, that year’s Super Bowl audience was about 90 million. So, OJ never made it to the Super Bowl, but if he had, he would have had a smaller audience than he had in this moment.
Mike: Unbelievable.
Sarah: Do you have any memory of this? Cause you were like 11.
Mike: 12. Yeah. I remember my parents beckoning me to the TV to be like, look at this. I didn't know who OJ Simpson was, or I had heard nothing of this, but I knew it was a huge deal. Cause I remember we watched it for that evening.
Sarah: Hmm. Yeah. And what do you remember seeing, like what did it look like?
Mike: It's just this very boring footage of a car driving down the road with like this squadron of police cars behind it, that in my memory are in like a flying V, but I think they're probably not in real life. I think at the time I thought he was going like 60 or 70 miles an hour. But I've since learned that he was going like 35 or something, that it was like not a high-speed chase.
Sarah: Yeah. It's funny that it's called the chase because I don't know if it ever technically was. It's like they're following him.
Mike: It's like a moving negotiation more than a real chase. because he's not like speeding down the streets, trying to shake them.
Sarah: It's a moving standoff. But anyway, yeah. So let's watch this footage. This is the Bronco chase. Just imagine you're a sports fan, Mike, and this is what you're watching. If you want to do one, two, three, go?
Mike: Yeah, let's do it. Three, two, one, go. All right. We're seeing basketball. It's a red team and a white team. Oh, black screen, special report.
Sarah: Special report, that beautiful nineties news graphic. I love that.
Mike: California highway patrol is in pursuit of a white Ford Bronco. And it might contain OJ Simpson and a friend. It's yeah, just helicopter footage of this car driving on an empty freeway.
Sarah: What does this remind you of? because it reminds me of something very specific.
Mike: Speed. The movie Speed. That's probably not what you were thinking of.
Sarah: I was going to say it reminds me of watching the footage of September 11th, and watching the news commentators talking as they're watching. Because you can hear them processing in real time what they're seeing and what you're seeing. They're just having to talk through stuff, and to keep talking, because that's their main job, apparently.
Mike: I also love the weird inhuman speech patterns of announcers, TV announcers, during these situations where they're like, “It's a car, it appears to be white. We think they are driving on a freeway.”
Sarah: I know, you can hear how empty that language really is.
Mike: We now have like what's five cop cars following behind him.
Sarah: Are they following in a V?
Mike: No, unfortunately.
Sarah: It's funny. Cause I have that mental image, too. And I don't know why, like I imagine that they're like geese.
Mike: Oh, yeah. There's no other cars on the freeway.
Sarah: If you were trying to watch this basketball game, I mean, I can't even see the ball.
Mike: And they just said, “OJ, Simpson's holding a gun to his head.”
Sarah: Yeah. The public has a lot of information, actually. Like them they're getting accurate information. Like what's being reported turns out to be true, which is kind of weird for a situation like this, I think.
Mike: Yeah. Oh, so they think he's on the way to his mother's house. Okay.
Sarah: Yeah. OJ is talking to the police and then these news anchors are being told that OJ is saying, I want to see my mother take me back to Rockingham so I can see my mother. And that's his demand.
Mike: Man. LA is big. He's been driving for ages.
Sarah: Okay. So then now they're talking about spectators. And as we cut to a wider shot, you're going to start seeing people lined up, pulled over, and against that barricade that separates the different lane directions. And they're pulled over and looking at OJ.
Mike: Oh yeah. He says people are getting out of their cars and waving at OJ Simpson.
Sarah: It looks like a parade, doesn't it? Oh, and look at that overpass. Do you see that?
Mike: Wow, packed overpass of people watching/waving.
Sarah: This broadcast has been going on for 11 minutes, which means that people had 11 minutes to be hearing about this on the radio, see, look at all those cars. They're seeing it on TV. They're figuring out where OJ is going because they know where basically on the freeway he is. And they know that he wants to see his mother. So they know that he's going back to Rockingham, presumably. So they know where he's going to be passing, pretty much.
Mike: It's like a marathon route or something.
Sarah: Yeah, exactly. It's like he's got the ball again. Right. And he's running and he's got, you know, wrong sport, but he's got to get home. You can hear people cheering very faintly in the background. And I don't even know if that's from the basketball game or the OJ footage.
And so the argument that we're going to see about OJ as a cultural figure, basically from this moment forward, is white people looking at the fact that there are people in the black community who everyone can see on TV, holding up signs, encouraging OJ to escape, and going to the sides of the freeway and trying to spot him and cheering and supporting him. After these images are on the news, this tidal wave of reactionary, white pundits who were like, this is wrong, I see my high horse, I'm getting it from the stable and I am saddling it up my friends. And I have no idea what the feeling was in various black communities at the time, because I wasn't there. But my guess is that it's nice when you're used to the police, just murdering people who look like you to have just one person, one black person who can say to the police, “Why should I hurry? What can they do to me?”
Mike: Right. I mean, I can see why people knowing what we know about the LAPD at that time, would have just instinctively not believed the police accounting of the events. A knee jerk disbelief of the police is no more illogical than a knee-jerk belief of what the police say.
Sarah: Yes. The police lie. The LAPD especially, lie. Like even among police, they're known for lying and they're known for brutality. And that's especially obvious to everyone because this is three years after the beating of Rodney King. The vicious beating of a man for the crime of speeding. Okay. I'm going to turn off the sound, but let the video keep going. Okay. So what do you think about that?
Mike: I think it was a big deal because the media made it a big deal.
Sarah: Right? Like it's not like people were walking this basketball game and they were like, I don't want to be watching this basketball game. I'm going to call and demand this car chase, taking place in a city that I probably don't even know what I'm looking at, or where it is, or why it's significant.
Mike: Because the only reason that this is significant is because of his celebrity, that I imagine there are cases like this in LA relatively frequently, and we don't interrupt NBA finals for them.
Sarah: There are much better chases in LA.
Mike: Yeah. So it's really the, the actual story here is like, troubled celebrity wanted by cops, which is really not a national story, but that's the entire dynamic of the OJ Simpson trial from day one, right? Is that it was never really all that unique of a story. It was simply two things that Americans love, celebrities and crime.
Sarah: So do you think that this is the media made this a story?
Mike: We've had other celebrities, like we had Phil Spector who was accused of crimes that I am not super familiar with the details of.
Sarah: I believe murder.
Mike: I think I also think murder. And I'm the reason I'm not familiar with that is because it wasn't a massive media frenzy for a year. It was just like a really sad story. You can imagine OJ being treated the same way. What's interesting is OJ was not even that big of a fucking celebrity. He was retired. He had had bit parts in The Naked Gun.
Sarah: Yeah. Like surely a lower level of celebrity like recording, Be My Baby.
Mike: Right. It’s like pretty incredible that the networks dedicated, I don't know, four hours to this.
Sarah: This is like an hour, but yeah, an hour and we're watching it and you’re like, this is boring. There's literally nothing remarkable about this car, right?
Mike: I mean, you can imagine this not being on TV and the OJ Simpson trial playing out differently. You know, it would have been in the newspapers that you can imagine being like page 12, page 13, not this national media obsession. I think so much of what ended up happening was set by this template of interrupting an NBA finals basketball game for, which is a pretty big deal. People love basketball.
Sarah: Yes. If you show something to almost a hundred million people and they all experience it together, then, like when it shows up in the news again, like when that person is in the news again, cause he's going to trial, you know, then people will be like, I remember that. And like it's significant to me, like I was part of it and for I'm invested. So like let's watch this trial, like how much, if it was that, I think that's a very important question. I think we were starting to have both the mercenary quality of broadcast media and the technological capability in a way that allowed us to have more and more live spectacles like this.
Do you want to know what's going on inside the car?
Mike: What do we know about that?
Sarah: So shortly after OJ and AC takeoff, OJ - who has a cell phone with him - calls Nicole's dad who was at Nicole's condo going through her things. And he's like, I'm going to come by. And Nicole's dad is like, okay. And then he calls the Police. So by the time OJ gets to Nicole's house, the police are already all over the place. And so he spots them from far away and avoids the area. And from there, he heads to her grave. And again, there's too much heat there so he avoids it. District Attorney Gil Garcetti holds a press conference and says, “You can tell that I am a little upset. And I am upset. This is a very serious case. Many of us perhaps had empathy, to some extent. We saw perhaps the falling of an American hero. To some extent I viewed Mr. Simpson the same way. But let's remember that we have two innocent people who have been brutally killed.” I find that interesting.
Mike: Yeah. It's weird that he's empathizing you don't get that a lot at like we're looking for this suspect, press conferences.
Sarah: Yeah. Talk about that. Mike, find, figure out what's at the bottom of this tote bag.
Mike: It’s strikingly different language than they use when they're looking for like the DC sniper or somebody else, like, yeah. They're pure evil and we're looking for someone who's the personification of every single thing that we hate. And it's basically not like a human that we're looking for. It's like this beast that we're chasing down.
Sarah: Which is what we can see the figure of the killer is if the district attorney is having a press conference.
Mike: it's like, it's weird to put the killing of two innocent people after the ‘but’, it’s like, this is a nice guy and he used to play football and he's going through a lot of stuff. But, you know, we got these two dead people.
Sarah: It’s interesting because just looking at, you know, the way I feel about the way crime is covered in the media and how upsetting I find it, that as soon as you have someone who's arrested or someone who emerges as a suspect in a crime, they are immediately used to promote tough on crime policy.
So as someone who just hates to see those narratives played out over and over again, so rotely. And they always are, you know, again and again, I agree with you. I have the response that I think people had at the time of like, oh, this is intriguing. Like, is this, could this be fair? It's like, wait, you're allowed to talk about the fact that you see the alleged murderer is human? Like you're allowed to do that as your job as district attorney? And like, I know you're allowed to do that because of the very specific kind of celebrity of this defendant, but like, imagine how you might feel if you did this more often. This is like the way vegans feel when they take you out for a vegan meal and you're like, “That was really good. And I feel really great. And I enjoyed that.” And they’re like, “Yes. What if you felt this way more often?”
Mike: I mean, it's also the power of. Wealth. Right.
Sarah: It's like wealth and celebrity.
Mike: are the only forces that can overcome grace.
Sarah: And it's not just any kind of celebrity. It is like the fact that like, there are countless white men who grew up truly loving OJ Simpson. Right. And like maybe no one else, maybe like they feel no positive feelings for any other black person ever, but maybe they do feel that for OJ Simpson, because he managed to be that for them.
Mike: It is Interesting thinking about the ways in which his celebrity is specifically coded as, appealing to men. Because we do get a lot of these, like’ the American tragedy of the sports star brought down’, in these almost like Shakespearian tones when it comes to the OJ.
Sarah: The great man brought down.
Mike: Yeah. But then we tend not to have those same narratives of like women when they fuck up. It's clear that the emotions of the men who are running media organizations is wrapped up in all of it this.
Sarah: This is like the intersectionality of this whole media event, because you have like, he is a man who is loved by other men. He is a black man who is loved by white men. And he is a man who was loved by men. And the fact that men have this feeling of love and angulation for him means that they appear to be willing to kind of brush aside the fact that he appears to have murdered his wife. All right. The LAPD have a press conference, Gil Garcetti has a press conference. And then Bob Shapiro has a press conference. Everybody has a press conference. His is at 5:00 PM. So Bob Shapiro begins his press conference by talking directly to OJ. And says for the sake of your children, please surrender immediately. And as you know, being calm and being his Bob Shapiro self.
Mike: And also maintaining this idea because he's also playing to the cameras to some point too. So he also wants to reinforce OJ’s innocence at this point.
Sarah: Yes. And also reinforce his own competence because then he's talking to the cameras and he's like, I have arranged many situations where someone I defendant has to turn themselves in. And for example, I arranged the surrender of Eric Menendez.
Mike: This is going on his show reel.
Sarah: And it is at this point that Bob Kardashian reads OJ’s letter to the press on public. I'm not, I'm not clear on his decision-making process. Like he doesn't even know if OJ is alive. He doesn't know where he is. Bob Kardashian is apparently pretty convinced that OJ could very likely be dead right now. And then also I feel like if he thinks, you know, well, maybe OJ is alive, then he could also be reading it from the perspective of this is going to make my friend look more sympathetic, I think. But anyway, Bob reads letter, which begins, “First, everyone understand I had nothing to do with Nicole's murder”, and Bob Kardashian reads, “I've had a good life. I'm proud of how I lived. My mama taught me to do unto others. I treated people the way I wanted to be treated. I've always tried to be up and helpful. So why is this happening? Nicole and I had a good life together. All this press talk about a rocky relationship was no more than what every long-term relationship experiences. All of her friends will confirm that I've been totally loving and understanding of what she's been going through.”
Mike: Not true
Sarah: “At times I felt like a battered husband or boyfriend, but I loved her, made that clear to everyone and would take whatever to make us work.”
Mike: He had to throw that in didn't he. Sometimes I felt like a battered husband, cause like she's so terrible, but anyway, yeah, she's recently died and I didn't do it. It's like really, dude, you can't just skip that clause one time.
Sarah: He couldn't not say it.
Mike: I felt like a battered husband. Unbelievable.
Sarah: Yeah. And so he concludes with, “Don't feel sorry for me. I've had a great life, made great friends. Please think of the real OJ and not this last person. Thanks for making my life special. I hope I helped yours. Peace and love, OJ” and then inside the O in OJ is a happy face.
Mike: It's like an Elle Woods move.
Sarah: I think that's how he signs autographs. And so as Bob Kardashians is preparing to read this letter at this press conference. He's nervous, obviously. And Bob Shapiro was like, “Just read slowly. Jack Nicholson has made a fortune off of speaking slowly”. I'm really interested in Bob Shapiro’s like Jack Nicholson interests. Like I, and I also love that he apparently watched Wolf the night before which is the movie where Jack Nicholson is a werewolf and then the next day, Bob Kardashians is like, how do I read this letter? And Bob Shapiro is like his, you got to do a Nicholson, just, he sold me on that werewolf, man.
And so they read the letter and then they take questions. And then when a reporter asks, why did Bob Kardashians read the letter at all?
Mike: Fair question.
Sarah: Because it doesn't make OJ look very innocent. And Bob Shapiro says we read it because it is the only words that we have from OJ. Jeffrey Toobin says, “This answer says much about the Karen feeding of celebrity clients. OJ wanted it done. So it was done.” Jeffrey Toobin does not like any of these people. And someone asked what are the last words he heard from OJ? And he said my personal words with him were of a complimentary nature to the way I had been with him and for him to thank me for everything I had done to date.
Mike: It's like always be selling, Bob.
Sarah: You know what he said that my rates are really low and I'm always on time. And so after the press conference, Bob Kardashian goes back to Rockingham, which was being guarded by officers and they're like, we can't let you in. And he's like, I'm OJ Simpson’s doctor. And they're like, okay.. And so they let him in, and he goes to talk to Jason and Arnell, OJ’s children from his first marriage. And he's basically like I'm going to level with you guys, OJ, loves you. He wants you to have all the money you need. And so based on all that, it's his opinion that their dad is going to kill himself rather than go to jail.
Mike: Whoa. He just tells them that he?
Sarah: He apparently really, really thinks that's going to happen. Yeah. Because he's breaking it to them like as news, pretty much Whoa. And Jason like panics and, you know, runs away and starts to cry. And Arnell just sits there, just staring at Bob silently crying. And he's like, your father loved you so much. And he just felt he had to do this. And then one of the other family members who's there, you know, they have the TV on. Is like, wait a minute, there he us.
Mike: Jesus Christ. I don't know if that's funny or just ironic or what, but my involuntary reaction is to laugh at that.
Sarah: It's dark.
Mike: It's really dark and weird.
Sarah: And then Jason apparently is, you know, he comes out of the bathroom where he's been crying and he's like, come on, dad, come on. So like, everyone knows what this is, he's making a run. So at 2:00 PM that day, the LAPD has put out an all-points bulletin. And as we talked about before, there is a couple that are on the road at about 6:30 heading North on I-5, when they see the white Bronco and they call it, and their names are Kathy and Chris.
Mike: Thank you, Kathy and Chris.
Sarah: And so at the same time, detective Larry Poole is heading North on I-5 when he also sees a white Bronco and then quickly reads the plate, radios it in and is like, Oh, hey. So he pulled up to where he's driving alongside Al Cowlings. Al looks at him and according to American tragedy, smiles nervously.
Mike: I'm imagining like a Bugs Bunny, like cartoonish shrug. Like, I don't know what I'm doing, here I am officer.
Sarah: Okay. Then another cop car shows up and then to quote from American tragedy, the Bronco stopped in heavy traffic at Grand Avenue and Orange County. Cowlings glanced to the side and saw two guns pointing at him. All he heard was the deputies ordering him to cut his engine. Cowling started screaming, swearing, yelling, no, and pounding his fists on the door. The blows were so violent the Bronco shook. The traffic cleared at Grand Avenue and the officers found themselves behind Cowlings again, traveling down the freeway, the chase had begun. Cowlings dialed 911, and he says, “This is AC, I have OJ in the car right now. We're okay. But you've got to tell them just back off. He's still alive, but he's got a gun to his head. Let me get back to the house.”
And they do, they've basically made a demand and having it met by the police. It's also worth noting, I mean, it's so easy to forget in the midst of what this became, but it's worth pointing out, this all worked out peacefully. Like he did peacefully surrender to the police. And like, I think, you know, the excitement of watching this was that people didn't know how it was going to end and like nothing was happening, but maybe something would happen.
Mike: It's like watching the Indy 500 where like something terrible could happen or it could just be really boring.
Sarah: And whatever happened was going to end up on TV. So the news choppers find the white Bronco.
Mike: Did they get that from the radio scanner? How did they find that out?
Sarah: Oh, I can tell you exactly. So, Zoey Tur and her wife Marika, who kind of are the pioneers of LA freeway chase helicopter news. Zoey and Marika have the same hunch that various members of OJ’s defense team have, which is that he has gone to the cemetery where Nicole has buried. And so they take their KCBS chopper to the cemetery. They noticed that the cops have staked out the cemetery and then they're like, “Okay, so he probably is avoiding a stakeout, but let's sort of check out the area.” And so that is when they spot OJ and start broadcasting a live image of the Bronco. And then other helicopters also join in. And so not only does he have this phalanx of police cars following him, but he starts to have just this flock of helicopters following him as well.
Mike: And that's when we lose our basketball.
Sarah: And that's when we lose basketball. And then we have various news anchors and media personalities kind of trying to follow along and explain what's happening. And people who don't know LA geography very well are kind of lost. Larry King is talking about this live. He had really thought that North Korea would be the big news story that week. And he did not think that his acquaintance, OJ Simpson would stay in the news for very long, but he was wrong. And so, because he's doing his show from LA, but he really doesn't know the city well at all, he has a Los Angeles Atlas brought to him as he's narrating the chase so he can like see where this is, right?
Mike: Like where on the tic-tac-toe board of freeways.
Sarah: This is people who knew geography following along are speculating that Al Cowlings is going to get off the San Diego freeway at the Sunset Boulevard exit, which is then going to take him to OJ’s house at Rockingham, which he does do. And then I'll read to you from The Run of His Life, “Cowlings indeed left I-405 at Sunset. Then he dodged traffic for about a mile until he could make a right turn onto the privileged, hilly precincts of Brentwood. With the helicopter, still tracking him among the gated homes. Cowlings then made a left onto Ashford, from which he could turn into OJ’s driveway. Cowlings, however, almost didn't make it. There were so many television satellite trucks parked on tiny Ashford that Cowlings had to slow to nearly a full stop to inch his way past them. With dusk fast approaching, Cowlings finally managed to pull into the driveway at 360 North Rockingham. The Broncos flashers illuminated the cobblestones in the driveway, from which earlier that week, police had scraped blood samples. It was shortly before 8:00 PM.”
So detective Tom Lange, who we've heard from quite a bit in previous episodes, decides to have the LAPD SWAT team go to Rockingham while OJ is still on the road and prepare to take him in. So they have a team of about 25 guys waiting for him there. All of OJ's people are sent away except for his son Jason, and Bob Kardashian. And the LAPD also invited a photographer for Time and Life Magazine.
Mike: Oh my God. Oh, Jesus Christ.
Sarah: So just the essentials, it's your eldest son, your oldest friend, a SWAT team, and a photographer from Time Magazine.
Mike: It's amazing how both the lawyers and the cops are deliberately using the press.
Sarah: Once again, we're getting a tasting sampler of all of this. So when Al Cowlings and OJ pull into Rockingham, Jason immediately appears at the front door and is upset and yelling at Al Cowlings and running toward the car. And Al cowlings reaches out and pushes Jason away. And so according to Jeffrey Toobin, and a couple of police officers come and basically dragged Jason back into the house and Al Cowlings says of OJ, he's got a gun, don't do anything stupid, get the police away. And so, again, we're in this standoff situation where the fugitive is making demands and the police are actually somewhat interested in negotiating.
Mike: Right. The famously soft hand of American SWAT teams. “Yeah, whatever you need. Do you need a back rub?”
Sarah: Meanwhile, it's getting dark. These news helicopters are hovering above OJ’s house still trying to get their footage. Kato, the dog who has been at Rockingham, is wandering around. And so for a while, the only footage that the helicopters have is just of this dog walking around in the driveway. And so the LAPD has a negotiator talking to OJ. And OJ says, “I want to speak with my mother. That's my demand.” And at that moment, the battery in OJ’s phone goes dead. So Al Cowlings leaves the car, goes into the house to get a new cell phone for OJ, and it is at this point that OJ decides to call it. It's 8:53 PM. They've been in the driveway for nearly an hour. The chief of the SWAT team is like, “All right, you're going to have to step out of the car and surrender yourself”, and OJ does. What Toobin says is he staggered into the foyer and collapsed into the officer's arms. “I'm sorry guys”, Simpson kept repeating, “I'm sorry I put you through this.” And so they let him use the bathroom. They give him a glass of orange juice and he calls his mother. And then after he talks to his mother, the officers ask OJ if he's ready to go. And he says he is, and then they put handcuffs on him and started to take him to Parker Center. However, the police have told the news helicopters that they are not allowed to shine any lights on the scene. And so it's dark outside. No one sees OJ with handcuffs on him being taken out of the house by the police. No one sees him being perp walked.
Mike: So we didn't get the image of him being walked out of the house in handcuffs, even though it happened. So is this where are we going to leave OJ for now?
Sarah: This is where we leave him for now. And he's going to be taken into Parker Center and booked, and he will be in jail until the end of his trial. So for the next 15 months. And to trial we go.
And I want to pause here for a while, now that we have completed this chase, and we're going to return to the story for I guess kind of season two after a hiatus. I guess, I don't know Mike, I’m going to close now though by asking you like, would the story of the trial be as big without the story of the Bronco chase? Like if we hadn't all shared that as Americans, would we have been so excited to share more?
Mike: I mean we'll never know, but I, I believe so. I mean, I just think that the lack of police brutality is really striking in this story. I mean, the amount of leeway, even in this situation, that the police are giving him is remarkable. Like here's some orange juice, OJ.
Sarah: What does it suggest about what, like, how would they see him? Like what kind of person do you treat this way?
Mike: I mean, in other scenarios, Americans SWAT teams are so vicious, that you can call anonymously and have a SWAT team sent to somebody's house and they will kill that person on no other information. Like there's a reason why swatting is a thing in America, and it is not a thing in other countries. A SWAT team will come in and kill people's dogs, kill people's partners, kill people's kids. And then now, we've got a SWAT team just like hanging out in OJ’s house, like yeah, use the bathroom. Don't forget to wash your hands. Yeah. Whenever you're ready. OJ, it's incredible.
Sarah: It is. And it's also, it suggests to me that like, they cannot bring themselves to truly fear him.
Mike: Or to see him as other, right. Because othering is so important to American policing culture, right. That like, the normal rules don’t apply.
Sarah: Yeah. I just find it inspiring, you know, because the police are just like, we are doing our best. And it's like you say that, but remember a time when you had a suspect and you really decided to not kill him, and you didn't. Remember that? Remember what happens when you put your mind to something?
Mike: Imagine all the people.
Sarah: Well, just like, I mean, it's my dream that every defendant is treated like OJ Simpson, I want everyone to have a Johnny Cochran and if they want, I want everyone to have a Bob Shapiro who, you know, is useful for a brief period and is like hitting up potential defense witnesses in the freaking Beverly Wilshire. To me, the story of OJ has always been, there’s just so much happening here. There's so many stories that were lost at the time and that we get to revisit. Now there's so many forms of injustice taking place, but at the end of the day, I'm just like, let's order the OJ special for everybody. Let's make that like the, like the standard menu.
Mike: It's easy. If you try.