Part 2 Storyville

This programme contains some violent scenes, strong language

and scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.

OJ SIMPSON: I'm ready to retire.

For the last couple of years I've gotten very busy on the off-season.

Mainly because, early in my career, I had those rough years in Buffalo.

I sort of told myself then I would put my energies

into something that was going to sustain me and last.

I knew then that I would have trouble adjusting

to not being a football player.

So, I said,

"Hey, I better start preparing myself for...

"for, you know...now."

I want to tell you that, over the years,

I've heard your applause and I've appreciated your cheers.

And I want you to know...

that I already know it's what I'm going to miss most.

Thank you all, very much.

CROWD CHEERS

Growing up in Brentwood was really a wonderful experience.

It's very quiet.

It's very affluent.

Very safe.

And very white.

Burglaries were very rare.

Violent crime almost non-existent.

You could leave your door unlocked.

Never have to worry about anything.

I graduated the academy in 1975.

And then transferred to West LA 1978-79.

West LA, the whole division, Bel Air, Brentwood, all...

it's loaded with stars.

And I'd sit back and go,

"Man, am I really getting paid for doing this?"

When I first got there, OJ had just moved from around Mulholland

over to Rockingham.

OJ Simpson living in Brentwood was really an anomaly.

He'd be one of, like, maybe three black people

in the entire community.

Los Angeles is unlike other places.

If you're a celebrity, you have no colour.

People enjoy having you in their neighbourhood,

especially if you're a celebrity like OJ, where everyone's husband

worshipped him as a sports hero

and couldn't wait to shake hands.

Once I found out he was living on Rockingham,

I decided I'd go by there and, you know, and let him know...

"Hey, you know? OJ, I'm here. This is where I work."

OJ was great.

He'd always referred to the LAPD guys as "the boys". You know?

"How's crime today?

"Hey, Shipp, what's going on in my area, man?

"Is you keeping the peace?"

You know, stuff like that. I'd be like, "Hey, man, everything's good."

70%, 80% of the people in the city of Los Angeles,

were thinking LAPD does a great job, we don't have crime here.

They thought out in the Valley or West Los Angeles,

"Hey, man, they're great. They smile. They wave.

"They're always around when you need them."

Well, that wasn't how other parts of the city were being treated.

On January 3rd, 1979,

two members of the Los Angeles Police Department

shot and killed Eulia Love at her home,

in a dispute over a 22.09 utility bill.

She died on her front lawn

before the eyes of her own children.

There is no single event that had a more profound impact

in LAPD history up to that point in time

than the shooting of Eulia May Love.

This is where Mrs Eulia Love stood the day the shooting took place.

There was an officer here, an officer there.

She held a knife in her hand, there was a scuffle,

the knife was knocked out of her hand,

she reached for it and, as she threw it, the officers opened fire.

This was a big deal.

This is a woman who has had a tough time.

And she was desperate.

So there was a lot of empathy going out to her from the community.

Once again, we have a member of the black community dead,

under circumstances that are highly questionable, at best.

It has been determined that the evidence does not warrant

the filing of criminal charges.

This was a justifiable homicide,

committed by the officers in their own self-defence.

As far as LAPD was concerned, it was just an event.

And everybody was supposed to accept it.

This was on the lips and minds of everybody in the community.

The people are going to get justice and it's going to be in the street.

It didn't help that you had a police chief who behaved poorly

and, in many ways, irresponsibly.

And I've commented on the media squeezing out the last, er...

tear of emotion in this situation,

where they talk about a 22 gas bill.

It doesn't make any difference, but it was, er...

a 69 gas bill.

Gates was Gates.

He's going to be fully supportive of his officers.

I guess they don't think I have any sympathy for anyone,

other than police officers, and that's simply not true.

I have great empathy and sympathy for Eulia Love and her family.

Deeply sorry that it happened, but it did happen.

I...

was a big fan of Daryl Francis Gates.

Gates introduced the SWAT model of law enforcement,

introduced the DARE programme to all of law enforcement.

So he was an innovator.

But he was also a controversial guy.

-GATES:

-We have officers out there doing the job.

Attempting to make good judgment, based on the information they have,

protecting themselves

and protecting the people of the city of Los Angeles,

that we go to hell for.

He loved LAPD.

He loved his officers.

And there were times that I believe that his love for his officers...

and the law enforcement mission...

..conflicted.

-TV PRESENTER:

-OJ Simpson and Elizabeth Montgomery

are two police detectives who have a problem.

They're falling in love and it's breaking all the rules.

But you are a married man and your conduct is supposed to be exemplary.

Would it make any difference if I was a white cop?

-TV PRESENTER:

-It's a bittersweet story

of two people caught between their emotions and their actions

in A Killing Affair.

Sunday at 3:00 on Channel 9.

Life for a black person, in a way, unfortunately,

is different than for white people.

And especially for black people who attain great success.

Is there pressure from your community

for you to really walk the straight and narrow?

I know that you are currently dating a white woman.

I wouldn't be asking this question

if we were living in different times, but we are

and there seems to be this sort of dichotomy here.

How do you answer it?

Well, I rebel against images because, then, erm...

you know, people tend to expect things from you.

I think I created an image by being me.

When I get into these arguments with people of the bla...

of my community, the black community,

I say, "Hey, I've accepted Jesus Christ"

"and I try to do unto others as, you know,

"I would have them do unto me.

"And after that, hey, my life is mine."

And I do what is morally right and acceptable to me.

I am not prejudiced in any form.

Obviously, I got a white girlfriend.

I admired his celebrity status.

We thought he had accomplished quite a bit.

To move from an athlete...

to a position of celebrity

and loved by all the people, not just black folk.

GOSPEL SINGING

I invited OJ here, early on in the '80s.

He didn't come as often as I thought he should.

But he did come to church.

I think he was very in tune with who his mother wanted him to be.

She wanted him to be honest, to be religious.

Just to rise above a lot of the things

that he saw growing up.

His mother was a staunch Christian.

And she had embedded within him the tenets of Jesus Christ.

I would talk to him about having achieved money and fame.

But all that came from God.

And there are times when you should...

respond to how good God has been to you.

Now, some days, depending on his mood, he would agree.

But he was not out there publicly,

fighting for African-Americans.

I think each person who is in the limelight

has an obligation

to make things better for the last, the lost, the least, the left out

and the looked over.

And I thought he should have done more.

If we, as black people, do not take on the responsibility

to do something for ourselves,

we really should be scorned in the eyes of the world.

In my circles, there were not a lot of people

who were preoccupying themselves

with getting to OJ or believing that OJ could be turned around

or, someday, was going to come to his senses

and embrace all of the things that have the values that we had,

in terms of really, really doing something demonstrative

for the black community.

OJ was just one of those things that you just kind of dismissed,

"Oh, that brother's a lost cause."

His voice was mute

on any issues that related to black people and our salvation,

police brutality, all of those things.

He was just a non-entity.

I don't know that he felt that he was sacrificing

what other people thought he was.

But you're sacrificing who you are.

Who you are raised to be.

How does one sustain that over that period of time?

How does one bend one's soul to that degree of denial?

SIRENS WAIL

See, he's laying on the ground, bleeding to death.

Is that what makes you happy?

HE SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY

Did you hear? Did you see what was going on?

Did he see everything happening in South Central? Yeah.

Did he want to take that home with him?

Did he want that to be who he was?

Who he identified with? No.

He stayed in Brentwood.

When you live in South LA...

I mean, you live here, this is where you breathe,

this is where you occupy your space.

I'm not sure if, you know, a lot of people even know where Brentwood is.

That's just the reality of black America and white America.

Two totally separate worlds.

ORCHESTRA PLAYS RAGTIME MUSIC

He's somebody who learned how to live with,

be totally accepted by a white world.

MUSIC CONTINUES

Underneath that,

he learned all of the indignities of the black world.

Although it's impossible to believe that he's that brilliant an actor,

I think he was always kind of "on" when he was in a white world

and he weren't when he was in a black world.

Which makes him the right soul for Coalhouse Walker.

He very much wanted to be cast in EL Doctorow's Ragtime.

And he worked hard

on trying to get that part.

He saw the part as being something

that he could go into a new dimension as an actor.

Let's go to your acting career for a moment.

Why did you want the role of Coalhouse Walker Jr?

Well, first of all, it, erm...

it was the only part thus far

that I've ever actively went after and didn't get.

So, I'd consider it my only failure in film.

Thus far.

Good afternoon.

I wonder if you might be able to help me.

Er...what do you want?

Well, I'm looking for a young woman of colour called Sarah.

Er,...who are you?

Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Coalhouse Walker Jr.

When I read the book, I could identify with this guy so much.

He was a black man at a time

when you were supposed to know you were black.

You were supposed to know you had a place.

Would you please wait around the back?

I was raised in the sports world,

where you're only judged by your abilities

and, you know, what you have to give.

Who is Coalhouse?

Well, he's a guy who created himself.

And destroyed himself, ultimately.

ANGRY SHOUTING

He was a guy who, among other things who was very prideful and suffered.

Suffered for his pride.

Mr Walker, let me give you some advice.

You spend the money on your wedding.

Build yourself a home and a family where you can find some comfort.

And just forget that some damn white man caused you offence.

I can understand exactly what he felt.

When he walked in a room,

he gave no credence to the fact he was black

and he wasn't supposed to say things or be treated any differently.

And, er...that's the way I've tried to look at my life.

So I felt I was the right person for that role.

I felt that I was today's Coalhouse Walker.

Just forget it? Is that it?

I've spent my whole life forgetting.

You're a young man.

You'd better start learning now.

Learning what?

How to be a nigger?

You know, there was some tragedy in your life in the last 10 years.

You lost a child.

I want to talk about how it changed you.

The baby drowned in a swimming pool.

On Rockingham, there.

He was away.

You know, he was always gone.

Four, set!

I don't know how much it changed me.

I've always tried to live my life to the fullest and, er...

I used to be so busy.

And I was on the road so much that,

in a sense, it partially cost me a marriage.

When I lost my daughter...

I was gone.

When my first daughter was born, I was gone.

CROWD CHEERS

When you lose a child, it's very hard.

Three weeks before Aaren drowned, my son drowned in a pool,

that Boys' Club in San Leandro, California.

So the tragedy affected us both.

It still affects me.

So I know how it affects him.

He didn't bring it up and we didn't talk much about it.

Hey, OJ!

I think it's the single most horrible thing in the world.

CROWD CHEERS

I think what you learn in the streets

is how to bury things.

And he blamed Marguerite.

He got rid of that memory when he got rid of that wife.

He just compartmentalised it...

..and got them out.

If anything, I made up my mind that I would be around.

And, er... it's nice to be loved by everybody.

But there's some people that love you a little more.

So I guess, if anything,

I just want to be a little more loving

and be there a little more to the people

that have chosen to share their lives with me.

And now by the authority committed unto me

as a minister in the church of Jesus Christ

and according to the laws in the State of California,

it gives me great delight, OJ and Nicole,

to pronounce you husband and wife.

APPLAUSE

MUSIC: Uptight (Everything's Alright) by Stevie Wonder

We love "Juice" like my brother.

I'm thrilled he's my partner and we're just...

totally knocked out that he finally took the step.

MUSIC: Jump (For My Love) by The Pointer Sisters

They had a great wedding.

Of course, they had amazing music.

And it was all, you know, Cristal champagne, all you could drink.

Where are the drugs? No, I'm just kidding.

It was a great party.

And they made a really strong, gorgeous couple.

I just felt that they were the ideal couple.

Because it seems like to me, from what I saw,

it seemed like they just had so much fun all the time.

I'm married! I don't believe it!

I'm married! I really don't believe it.

Nicole was funny and she was fun to be around.

She was a very good friend.

When Nicole came into my life at, what for any athlete,

is a very difficult time,

it was at the end of my career.

I was also going through a divorce at the time and, er...

all my life, I wanted to be a father.

I never really thought about being a husband.

And I thought I had given up...

the opportunity to watch my kids grow

until you came into my life and made this house a home,

brought my kids in.

You brought love into my house.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

He was really proud of her.

And she had definitely taken over.

I mean, she was running the show at Rockingham.

Rockingham, it was his Graceland.

It was all of their Graceland.

We never said, "I'll meet you at OJ's house."

It was always, "I'll see you at Rockingham."

It was what brought all of us together.

It was a special place.

I mean, you never knew who was going to be there.

He gravitated toward celebrities.

In any field.

And that's the glue that bonded him to Los Angeles

and also made Rockingham that castle.

You'd have the greatest athletes in the world show up.

Some of the most interesting politicians, you know?

The entertainment world.

And everybody always had a wonderful time

because it was "The Juice".

I've always had a large, what I call "family".

A large circle of friends,

and you need them more, I guess, in your life.

And my house... I mean, I have to be successful

to pay for the soft drinks and the beer

that the guys drink at the house on the weekends!

He flew a flag at Rockingham every day.

He loved America. He loved the red, white and blue.

He loved that feeling that you get, you know, on the 4th of July

and see jets fly over.

During the Olympics, when he carried the torch,

that was a big thing to him.

That was one of the things we talked about for years after.

How perfect the world was then.

I want to say to the Hall of Fame members here,

I mean, as a kid, I watched these guys

and, well, I must have done something good

or something right to be here.

And I just want you to know that I'll never let you guys down, man.

I'll live up to the honour of being in this Hall and being on your team.

APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

The most unique aspect of OJ Simpson

is that you're one of the few people

who've not only been successful in athletics,

but that success has really carried over to life after football.

CROWD CHEERS

Well, it's real exciting for me to be back here.

You know, on the field where I had so many thrills

and to experience these Buffalo Bills fans.

And, believe me, Howard, they're in rare form tonight.

Well, he certainly tried to be a commentator.

Peyton following Matt Suhey.

It's a testament to Walk... Walter's conditioning.

This guy works out harder than anybody and he...

He very much was involved in corporate America

and being on boards.

I think he was trying, very intelligently,

to parley his fame into wealth.

By the '80s, OJ really was a businessman.

His new friends were all super wealthy,

powerful white men.

And I think, really, the reason he surrounded himself

with all these big, successful entrepreneurs

is because he saw himself as one, too.

I've always been, sort of, an inquisitive person.

And I have friends who do a lot of different things.

And I've made it a point to find out

what the people around me were doing.

He called me a lot.

"Now, Frank, I have this opportunity for HoneyBaked Hams."

Or, "Frank, this friend of mine

"is doing some storage things in California."

I didn't always know those answers.

But I guess I enjoyed the fact that he trusted me enough to do that.

I introduced him to the business world.

I took him places

where I think very few black men had ever been.

The Pine Valley Golf Club.

The number-one club in America.

I got him into Arcola.

-INTERVIEWER:

-He was the first black member of the club, no?

Oh, yeah, by a long shot.

This one time, he brought Sidney Poitier.

And, of course, the whole club was circling around the two of them.

Even the bigots thought that was terrific.

They loved him.

Because he'd just fit in.

He could schmooze around and get ingratiated, cos he was "The Juice".

Street-smart, this man was an Einstein.

He could cunningly and calculatingly

figure out exactly what these white people were thinking about.

But he was also that way with black people.

It was almost magnetic, they were just drawn to it.

And I don't care who was there,

when he got to the room, it was, "The Juice is here."

Here's the man whose smile is more dazzling

than all his golden awards.

Sportsman, actor, all-around wonderful

Mr OJ Simpson!

APPLAUSE

I always told him he had delusions of grandeur.

He thought he could do certain things in business

that he wasn't capable of.

-AUDIENCE:

-Three!

One day he was going to run Paramount or 20th Century,

Warner Brothers...

Now, I mean, he believed things like that.

Ladies and gentlemen, another winning performance

from Mr OJ Simpson!

There's something deep-seated that I think a lot of people like myself

have to face up to

about what created this complex character.

It wasn't just him. It was part society.

We were looking for a celebrity.

And I...don't think we wanted an all-white cast any more,

as we did for the Police Squad TV show.

This was something that, you know, kind of looked better for us.

He was still in the public eye but, yet, he was economical,

because I don't think he was in demand for movies.

Police!

Throw down your guns!

OJ was fine for Naked Gun.

There was nobody better.

GUNFIRE

Urgh!

SIZZLING Argh!

Oh, no!

Naked Gun surprised me...

HE SCREAMS

..how funny he was.

He's a funny man. I mean, he was always a very funny man.

And he was always a selflessly funny man.

-Nordberg!

-Hiya, buddy!

-Hey!

The doc says I should be on my feet and as good as new in a week!

-And back on the force.

-Nordberg, that's wonderful!

-Whoa!

-Oh, Frank!

Everyone should have a friend like you!

Argh!

I used to take a lot of cops over to OJ's house

and I would never tell them who we were going to meet.

And I just loved looking at the expression on my partner's face

when they looked and saw OJ opening the door

and it was just like looking at...

You know, cos some of these guys, you know, macho cops.

"Hey," you know, "I'm LAPD."

And you could see them melt like little kids around this guy.

Everybody loved OJ Simpson, all the cops.

If you asked him for an autograph, you asked him for whatever,

I mean, he was just really, like, your best friend.

Now, let's take a look at today's black culture

in the city of Los Angeles.

The most important point that should be considered

in a law-enforcement setting involving blacks

is the matter of respect.

Everyone should be treated in a respectful manner.

-POLICE RADIO:

-OK, 4-23, you see that male black.

He's walking on the north side of the street there on your right side.

That's one of the suspects.

POLICE RADIO CHATTER

People who have been abused by the police have no regard for them.

They don't believe that the police comes to protect them,

comes to serve them.

That would be an unfortunate error in judgment

for you to conclude that all persons of a particular group

are similar to the few you have contact while you are working.

We're sorry, but, you know, it's our job, too,

that we've had to do this.

We just can't let you go.

'Look how I look.'

I'm light, bright, but damn sure not white. OK?

But the reality is, when I'm stopped by the police,

you know, they treat me like a nigger.

OK, let's roll and let's be careful out there.

In 1978, Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates apologised

after saying some Hispanic officers

don't advance in the ranks because they are "lazy".

And now an NAACP official is calling a comment by Chief Gates,

"so horrendous that it's laughable."

-TV:

-It all started when he first defended controversial chokeholds.

A number of African-American suspects had died after being

subjected to a chokehold. And Gates was asked about it

and he said the problem was that

they didn't respond the same as normal people.

The chief needs some time off to remove his foot from his mouth

and LAPD's chokehold from the necks of black people.

When I started covering the Police Department,

you could feel the residue of that comment.

In fact, police officers used to refer to the cars,

which normally people would call "black-and-whites",

they called them "black-and-normals".

And they would call them that in front of a reporter, by the way.

So it's safe to say that it was a sort of easy,

call it racial insensitivity, call it racism, within the department.

I moved to LA in 1988.

I had a really good friend who lived there, and she said,

"I have to give you the black man's guide to survival in LA.

"Whatever you do, don't fuck with LAPD."

POLICE RADIO CHATTER

In Los Angeles it was a day filled with tension in many communities,

because of the current wave of gang warfare.

I feel like a prisoner on the streets.

This city has vowed to stop gang violence but,

as police hunt the people responsible,

they must follow a trail of bodies.

We're going to do whatever's necessary.

And I told my people we're going to wage a war.

Operation Hammer,

that was the belief that we overwhelm the community

with warrants where we believe that we had violent criminals,

we could rid the problem.

Ladies, down on the ground!

Put your hands down, kneel over there!

Over the past week or so, Chief Gates,

how many arrests have you made?

Well, in the last month, we've made about 3,000 arrests.

Just in the last weekend we made 1,400.

You just have a culture of officers who felt that

the only way the world will survive

is if we neutralise these individuals as soon as possible.

Hands down, man.

And in the process of doing that,

they debased and demeaned the community.

You understand me?

There was no conversation with the community about

how should we deal with this?

It was just hammer, hammer, hammer.

SHOUTING

We have a war.

We are going to be successful.

Whatever it takes, we will do it.

I'd just put the kids into bed, and the next thing I know,

they just came in with guns and were saying, "Get down."

He grabbed me by the back of my head and he threw me on the floor,

then he kicked me and he hit me on my back

and he said, "Get down, bitch."

The kids were just hollering and screaming.

Next thing I know they were just tearing the place up.

1988.

39th and Dalton.

Not the best police practices.

Not the best way to manage a, er...a warrant service.

-TV REPORTER:

-Everything was destroyed

as police batted and rammed their way from room to room

searching for drugs.

Much of what they found were screaming mothers and children.

This is my bedroom over here.

But they even broke all the mirrors and stuff out of the bed.

They went in and literally destroyed the apartment

where, supposedly, a lot of drug activity was going on.

-TV REPORTER:

-All this resulted in three quarters of an ounce

of rock cocaine seized along with six ounces of pot.

You wouldn't go to Beverly Hills and do that,

even if you thought there was a mafia hang-out.

Even if you thought it was legitimate.

I called my insurance and I told them what happened.

He said he had never heard of the police doing this.

When you don't live in the community,

you don't think of them as human.

In my wildest dreams, would have never thought the police

of the city of Los Angeles would treat someone that way.

They started kicking me.

-What did they tell you?

-They didn't tell me nothing.

They just started kicking me and hitting me on my ribs and stuff.

-ALL:

-Chief Gates, we're proud of you.

We're proud to wear the PD blue.

APPLAUSE

You'd go to the power of LAPD back then.

They pretty much could do what they wanted to do.

Yeah.

Hi, I'm OJ Simpson and this season on HBO,

I'm going to be high-stepping right into your living room.

All right, we'll do it again.

When OJ was at SC, in my generation,

you didn't have the jerseys you could go buy,

so I would take my T-shirts and write "Simpson",

and I'd put, you know,

like, you know, his number, 32, and, "OK, I'm OJ."

Hi, I'm OJ Simpson and this season on HBO,

I'm going to be high-stepping right into your living room.

I just thought, "One day, I want to meet this guy."

OK, what's the next one?

And it was through Marcus Allen.

Follow me through training camp and I guarantee that I'll...

-Hey, Juice, I did hear my name.

-Hey, man, this is my spot, Marcus.

Well, I've got the ball now.

I'd been marketing Marcus for a few years.

And I told him,

"OJ ever needs a manager, let me know."

Training camp is a time to show what you can do.

It's a time to show off your skills.

You can prove yourself as a man.

Blah, blah, blah...

I did public appearances, endorsements, TV commercials,

autograph signings,

basically everything encompassing his image.

This week in training camp...

This week in training camp...

No.

This week in training camp... No.

The big thing that has always been in everybody's head is image.

Image is everything.

Never do anything that is going to harm his image.

Thank you, guys.

I remember he had a little 100-yard dash with Marcus Allen one day.

And he had bad knees, OJ, from all the running.

And he beat fucking Marcus. I couldn't believe it.

It's something inside of him.

He wanted to win, no matter what it took.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Chopping through that swing. And look out.

When he first started playing golf, he violated every rule.

-COMMENTATOR:

-OK, he's gotta work on his balance a little bit.

I played with OJ and this other friend,

Little Joe Kolkowitz.

OJ had the worst form of anybody on this planet

when he swung a golf club.

One day, on the first tee, he hits this big drive

and it hooks into the trees, heavy stuff.

So we go down the fairway, we're waiting and waiting

till Joe goes after him.

All of a sudden, he finds his ball

after a place where we probably went over.

He sees the ball sitting on a tee, and he says to OJ,

"You can't do this shit, man."

I go, "Jeez, come on.

"Do you know what the odds of the ball

"landing on a tee in this area?"

He totally was not going to confess to the whole thing.

He definitely cheated.

Yes. Yes.

What he'd do, he had a ball in his pants

and he'd drop it out and then, "Hey, you guys, come on over here."

You know, "Here's my ball."

And he did that to the point where, finally,

a bunch of guys got together and they hired a caddy.

We called it The Juice Patrol.

And so he'd follow OJ around in another cart,

so he wouldn't cheat.

It was funny. It was, you know, it was like you couldn't get mad.

It was very hard to get mad at him.

One of the things you pride yourself in in being a golfer

is you don't cheat.

But people made a joke out of it,

because they so badly wanted him to understand

the rules and regulations of this part of society

that didn't tolerate that type of behaviour.

And yet he had that amazing charm

that you'd somehow let him get away with certain things.

APPLAUSE

Whenever you went somewhere with him, like, doors would just open

and, you know, people would pick up checks.

I'd say to him, "Hey, Juice,

"how are we going to get in somewhere?

"We don't have any tickets." He would go like this...

He... That's his ticket.

I think he became entitled.

I certainly felt bedazzled by OJ and Nicole and their lifestyle

and I was very charmed by him.

But I always did sense that part of it was not sincere.

The other side is my better side, I think.

Turn the other side for me.

And I did feel that he took advantage of that.

And if you allowed him to, I think he would, er...use you.

All right, we're set here.

My kissable lips, ooh.

While he was married, his integrity was...

I mean, er...

..not as I would have it. I will put it that way.

He was an incorrigible womaniser.

He just never stopped.

He cornered me a couple times and tried to make, er...

sexual, you know, advance and, you know, I kind of pushed him off.

I think OJ felt entitled to anything OJ wanted.

And I think that he really needed that adulation from other women.

She knew he had affairs and it drove her crazy.

Most of their big fights were about his affairs with other women.

He went out of his way to almost rub it in her face.

He'd be in Las Vegas at a show and be holding hands with another woman.

She would be watching TV and, I mean,

I don't know how she put up with it.

He was pretty darn brazen.

I think he even blamed his affair with Tawny Kitaen

on the fact that Nicole got fat when she got pregnant

and he didn't want to have sex with her.

Something as superficial and cold as that.

# On the hammock, taking a little swing. #

Look! See the trees?

I told him, "Man, you're breaking the laws of God,

"and nobody does it with immunity.

"You're going to pay for it, man.

"One day everybody's going to know everything that you've done, man."

POLICE SIREN

When you hear a call come out

and the 911 operator puts out on the call

that she can hear the woman being beaten in the background,

that...that's serious.

When I got there,

I saw an electronic buzzer system, so I pushed the button.

Almost simultaneously, a tall, female blonde

came running out of the bushes.

She's wearing nothing but a bra and sweatpants covered in mud.

She kept yelling, "He's going to kill me! He's going to kill me!"

When that gate opened, she ran up and just put her arms around me

and collapsed on me.

She was so wet and cold

that you could feel her shivering to her bone.

And I said, "Well, who's going to kill you?"

She said, "OJ."

She says, "You guys have been up here eight times before.

"All you do is talk to him, you never do anything.

"He's going to kill me."

Her face had already swollen.

She actually had an imprint on one side of her face and her forehead.

So I said, "Do you want him arrested for beating you?"

She said, "Yes."

About that time, OJ Simpson came right up to the fence

and he started yelling,

"I don't want her in my bed any more. I got two other women.

"I don't want her in my bed any more."

He's got a receding hairline, so you can see his forehead

and this vein was popping out, pulsating,

and it was right up his forehead.

I told him, "I'm placing you under arrest for beating your wife.

"You're going to have to go get dressed so I can take you to jail."

He turned around and went back in the house to get dressed.

Suddenly, I saw a Bentley pull out of the other driveway.

So I said, "Back up. He's trying to get away in a car."

And we backed out of the driveway

and I never caught him with that car.

I never found him.

MARCHING BAND MUSIC

-TV COMMENTATOR:

-Downtown Los Angeles, a little ocean haze.

There is no smog today, everybody's taking it easy.

Here at the 75th Rose Bowl game, score 7-3.

1989, Trojans were in the Rose Bowl.

I was privileged enough to have sideline passes

and that was actually the first time I'd ever been to a Rose Bowl game

on the sidelines cos, when I was a walk-on at USC, I never got to play.

CROWD CHEERS

I was just having the time of my life.

All of a sudden, one of OJ's really, really good friends

came up and tapped me on the shoulder.

He said, "Hey, man, er, OJ had a problem last night, you know,

"and, er, he really needs to talk to you."

-REFEREE'S WHISTLE BLOWS

-It's over.

CROWD CHEERS

When I called, he said, "Hey, man, I had a little riff.

"The boys had to come out.

"Right now, I feel like I'm a fugitive."

And he explained to me that they had an argument,

and she got real physical with him

and he had to defend himself and grab her and hold her and...

The way he told me the story, I'm thinking,

"Hey, man, no big deal. You know? You didn't hit her.

"You know, you said she was aggressive,

"and you were trying to stop her from...from beating you up.

"Erm, no big deal."

And when I got to work the next morning, it WAS a big deal.

I got a call from downstairs, "Someone wants to talk to you."

And there's Nicole in the lobby.

"Hey, Nicole, what's up?"

You know, she goes, "Did you hear about what happened?"

I said, "Yeah, I did hear what happened."

And she told me it wasn't the first time.

Showed me the pictures from the past beatings

and I looked at those pictures

and my heart just, like, dropped.

I was like, "Man, this guy is a typical batterer."

The '89 thing, the way I saw him act in Hawaii that Christmas

convinced me that, boy, there was something really, really wrong.

He freaked out about Nicole sitting their little son

next to a homosexual in a restaurant they were at.

I mean, he just freaked.

And they fought all the way back.

The next day, I got a call that he freaked out on New Year's Eve

and he beat the hell out of her.

Nicole knew that I used to teach domestic violence

for the Los Angeles Police Department.

And she asked me, "OJ's dad is gay.

"Do you think this is why he beats me?"

And I was like, "I... You know, I don't know.

"But a lot of that stuff has to do with their self-esteem."

OJ Simpson, that night, definitely got preferential treatment.

Had that have been anybody else, you or me, we'd have gone to jail.

I did place him under arrest.

I tried my best, but couldn't get to him.

But when you tell someone they're under arrest,

they are under arrest.

If he flees, then, he's a fleeing felon.

But the unique thing about OJ is it was OJ.

Where can he go?

Where can he hide?

Where can he run to on the face of this earth?

Where can he go?

POLICE RADIO CHATTER

POLICE SIRENS

Now, the story that might never have surfaced

if someone hadn't picked up his home video camera.

I can remember that moment like it was yesterday.

I was laying in my bed, and I called out to my wife.

I said, "You got to come see... You can't believe this."

How will the police justify this one?

How will they get out of this one?

-TV REPORTER:

-Police say the man, 25-year-old Rodney King,

was involved in a high-speed chase, wanted as a parole violator.

The Police Department says there will be no comment

until its investigation is complete.

As yet, no charges have been filed.

This is what happens

when you take away a tool that would have ended this in ten seconds.

Chokehold.

Look how this thing looks.

You can't justify that.

I was the captain at Watts at the time.

Atten-hut!

The next day, we had a training day.

I remember standing in front of all of the troops and I told them,

"The LAPD will never be the same again."

Oh, it was devastating, because there was going to be a belief

that if these guys do it, everybody else does it,

those guys driving down the street in black-and-white do that,

and that's just not the case.

But that visual image, folks remember that

and they will take it to their grave.

That home video showing a black motorist being beaten by a white

Los Angeles policeman has triggered investigations now by the FBI,

the District Attorney there, and the Police Department itself.

The media didn't give LAPD a break on this one.

They showed that tape over and over and over.

I mean, it wasn't just in Los Angeles, it was all over the world.

Dimanche soir en Californie aux Etats-Unis...

I was embarrassed for Los Angeles.

The real significance wasn't what you saw on the tape.

That tape became exhibit one for every mishandled abuse

and excessive force incident that anyone had ever experienced.

This is an aberration.

This is something that should never have happened.

We had in place all of the procedures

that would keep it from happening.

Those procedures fell down because of human error

and we will deal with that human error.

I believe things like that do happen from time to time,

but they are anomalies. It's not what happens all day,

every day, in the thousands of contacts that occur.

I don't believe it, I'll never believe it.

Daryl Gates started off saying it was an aberration.

And we said, "Daryl, don't you remember you're the law?!"

I think the thing that's most shocking about the King incident

isn't even what happens to King.

It's the fact that all those officers go back to their police

divisions that night, none of them knowing that a videotape exists.

They all file their reports and not one of them says, in any document,

that they saw anything go wrong.

That suggests to me

a culture in which this wasn't perceived as something wrong.

In Los Angeles today, four men were arrested, photographed

and fingerprinted. They were policemen, charged with assault

with a deadly weapon in the beating of a black motorist.

Named in the indictment - Officers Laurence Powell,

Ted Briseno and Timothy Wind

and their supervising sergeant, Stacey Koon.

The FBI will investigate whether the federal civil rights

of the victim, Rodney King, have been violated.

A story's not a story unless there's conflict.

You really want to say this is a felon speeding on the freeway

under the influence of a hallucinogenic and/or alcohol?

Or do you want to say

he's a motorist and he was stopped by these racist cops?

How do you know these cops are racists? They're not racist.

The furore is only growing with the revelations of police

communications over their in-car computer terminals.

An earlier message from the Powell-Wind unit

referred to a previous call as, "Right out of Gorillas In The Mist."

Has there been times when we've been brutal,

used excessive force? Absolutely.

The racist part is really tough to choke down, for me.

During my 38 years there... I didn't see it.

Civil rights organisations say the LAPD has a history of brutality

and misconduct that goes back a quarter of a century,

including one incident that sparked the Watts riots.

We want effective law enforcement in the city of Los Angeles.

You take an oath to protect and serve,

but when you come to the black community, all you do is abuse!

CROWD CHANTS

You can only take so many shots publicly before your reputation

is so soiled that it can be manipulated over and over again.

That will always be included in the argument to demonstrate

how brutal and insensitive and racist the LAPD is.

It's like, you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

We're outraged, we're disgusted, and let's close this one with...

-CHANTING:

-No more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more!

In comes Latasha Harlins.

Coming to the counter with what she was going to buy in one hand,

money in the other.

Altercation.

Walks away.

Is shot in the back of the head.

Latasha Harlins really hit home, cos my daughter was the same age

as Latasha Harlins.

Rodney King didn't touch me as much as Latasha Harlins,

because this girl was killed.

She was a little teenage girl

buying some orange juice. Mm-mm.

That... That could have been my child.

-TV REPORTER:

-Up until Saturday morning,

Soon Ja Du was a Korean grocer in Los Angeles.

Now she's an alleged criminal facing a first-degree murder charge.

Well, at this time she's looking at a maximum of 30 years to life.

According to witnesses and security camera videotape,

Harlins never tried to steal the juice.

Instead, investigators say Du angrily confronted the girl

and then shot her with a .38 calibre handgun.

I hope and I know that justice will serve itself

and she will get what she deserve.

Soon Ja Du had no respect for that young woman.

The way they beat Rodney King, OK, her shooting Latasha Harlins,

it's the same PEOPLE,

OK, that are being victimised.

The recommendation of the people was maximum state prison.

I think that the death of Latasha deserved that.

The court decided otherwise.

Mrs Du is placed on formal probation for five years

on the following terms and conditions -

Mrs Du is to perform 400 hours of community service...

Get the cameras off!

No camera! Get the camera out of my face!

The judge called for peace...

How can you have peace when this is going on?!

What?!

This woman killed a child,

she killed a child, and not getting any jail time?

I-I-I...

I haven't gotten over that, really.

Wake up, Los Angeles! Wake up!

Let not her blood be in vain!

When Latasha was killed, our family was killed.

-CROWD:

-Yeah!

Racism is not the Korean killing her,

racism is the court system that allows her to kill her!

SHOUTING

-REPORTER:

-Chanting, "Karlin must go,"

angry protestors stormed through security checkpoints

at the courthouse in Compton.

They are still outraged over Judge Joyce Karlin's decision

not to send Latasha Harlins' killer to jail.

They are willing to go to jail to get their point across.

In a community, you go to jail for selling crack for 20 years,

20 or 30 years. How are you going to kill somebody and get probation?

What kind of sense does that make?

What kind of justice is that?

39th and Dalton.

Then Rodney King.

Then Latasha Harlins.

Three defining issues, in different ways.

But the tension in the environment

and the disrespect shown to black life

was the theme.

..with the personalities and cover stories making news

in the world of sport.

Now, here's your host - Roy Firestone.

When you live your life so publicly and really almost with such ease,

it's hard to believe that there could ever be any rocky time.

The reason I'm bringing that to light now

is not to dredge it up again, but more or less talk about

how things can get distorted to such a point that you are portrayed

as the bad guy.

New Year's Eve. Had a little bit too much to drink.

You know, actually, my wife and I have been together for 12 years

and when I look at it, it really wasn't that big of a fight,

it's just that because of it being New Year's Eve,

cos it's three o'clock in the morning, just finished a big party,

it got a little...got a little loud.

Here's my point.

The point I'm making, Juice, is that it got to such a point that

you were portrayed in the press for a while there like a wife-beater.

Well, yeah, and that bothered me.

Obviously, it bothered my whole family. I mean, you know, the day

after this was over, we looked at each other - we had a fight,

we were both guilty, no-one was hurt, it was no big deal

and we got on with our life.

I had always suspected that they had violent fights.

The day of my wedding, I found out that Nicole and OJ

were not going to be attending.

And he said it was because Nicole was having very bad cramps

from her period.

I thought it was a lie.

It was always Nicole's fault.

I mean, even the '89 thing when I cornered him.

He was sitting in a golf cart. I listened for nine holes -

everything that she did wrong to create what had happened.

"You think that she's bruised up? You should have seen my face."

You know, the whole pity thing that he always went through.

I think anybody that knew them... it was over.

Then it was a matter of when would Nicole have the fortitude

just to completely walk away?

She said, "Ron, if it wasn't for the kids, I'd be out of here."

And then I get a call from OJ. He says,

"You got to help me here, you got to help save this marriage,

"you got to talk to Nicole, tell her I'll never do it again."

I saw her start to soften.

Because, by this time, OJ is just doing everything with the kids

and they're just having a great time, he's taking them here,

he's taking them there, she's looking at me, going,

"Hey, Ron, he's really changing.

"He's really changing."

When it turned toward the domestic violence,

that was one that nobody wanted to hear.

The police didn't want to hear it,

most certainly Hertz didn't want to hear it,

NBC didn't want to hear it - nobody wanted to deal with that.

Back to you, Bob.

When we heard that, I thought that was it. It's over.

You know who called me to tell me that it was a false arrest?

Nicole.

Nicole called me and said,

"Frank, it didn't happen that way."

They'd had a terrible argument,

but he wasn't abusive, they just overreacted.

I certainly understand how she got involved with him

and I can understand how hard it would be to leave that.

There was a lot to leave.

Especially if it was to go back to your parents' house in Laguna Beach

and start over.

OJ was the income producer for the family.

For not only just Nicole and OJ,

but for Nicole's father,

mother, sisters.

He was the money man.

Nicole told me that she felt her family would side with OJ.

And that disturbed her a great deal.

Nicole was like a trophy to him,

you know, something that he possessed,

that he wanted control of, you know,

and, "You better do what I say,

"you better go along with this programme."

I totally believe he was concerned about his image.

What kind of public reaction did you get

and what kind of corporate reaction did you get, Juice?

Surprisingly...so supportive, it was unbelievable, you know?

So supportive, you know?

Most of the people I work with know us real well,

so they can see first-hand that our relationship was as strong

not only as it's ever been, but as strong as anybody's I know.

-So nobody dropped you from any contract?

-No.

Another thing people don't realise about OJ is,

he is extremely well involved in the business community.

He doesn't want to do this, cos it's embarrassing to him,

but he's one of the owners of HoneyBaked Ham, Ramada Inn,

three Ramada Inns,

very involved, of course, with Hertz,

and when something like this happens, it takes a toll, it takes

a bite out of it, but you bounce back from something like this...

Once they really, really got back together, you know,

"We're still friends, I still love the guy and everything,"

but, you know, he kind of had that attitude,

"I'm back. I knew I'd be back."

You know. "Hey, don't worry about it, everything's fine."

-REPORTER:

-This is where OJ Simpson performed community service

as part of his sentence for beating his wife, Nicole.

For part of his punishment, Simpson went golfing.

He spent his 120 hours of community service organising

a celebrity tournament.

Prosecutors in the case say they wanted him to go to jail.

Can you imagine if every time he did something violent like that

that a report would have been made?

When I got to the station, I checked the computer,

there would have been eight previous domestic incident reports on file.

Then I would have put that in my report

and sent it on to the prosecutor.

That, most likely, would have been filed as a felony.

Because it would have shown that a slap on the hand

is not going to cure this from happening again.

And that's why I hung onto the report.

I don't have a garage full of reports. I have one report.

One.

It was OJ Simpson's report.

Because I thought that the case might be mishandled

and I needed proof that it actually happened.

And I thought he was going to kill her.

A controversial case involving four Los Angeles police officers

goes to court today.

The officers face charges

stemming from the videotaped beating of a motorist.

The case has already raised accusations

of officially-sanctioned racism and brutality.

At issue is the use of force.

The question is whether their force was justified by King's behaviour

before the camera rolled.

I don't think that should have been prosecuted.

Those officers had about two seconds to make up their mind to do

something, and they did what they thought was right at the time.

When is too much? When is not enough?

Shouldn't have been going to trial. Definitely not.

On film, what you see was illegal.

There had to be a prosecution.

And if there isn't a legitimate reason for this,

there's jail time involved with this one.

I was fairly new to LA,

so I'm thinking, "We got them. We got them cold.

"This time, we'll get justice."

And there were people who had lived in those communities a long time

and they were saying, "Well, you know, maybe. I hope so.

"But it's not a done deal."

In a brand-new courthouse in a distant LA suburb

called Simi Valley,

the city's drama is putting a little town on the map.

The defence had the trial move from Los Angeles County

to this bedroom suburb.

This area is notably more white and conservative than LA.

It was a horrible decision. It was the worst possible decision.

A lot of LAPD officers live in Simi Valley.

The idea is you get a representative cross-section of the community,

that's what the Sixth Amendment talks about

and that people come in with different life experiences,

because you really do need people to come from different walks of life

so that you get a complete understanding of the testimony.

Completely in fear for my life, scared to death that

if this guy got back up, he was going to take my gun away from me.

Cases involving charges against police officers are rarely

slam-dunks, even when they're on videotape.

Did you believe that the actions of your officers, up to this point,

were having any affect on Mr King?

None at all.

This was a managed and controlled use of force.

It followed the policies and procedures

of the Los Angeles Police Department and the training.

Now, as the defence presents its case,

civil rights lawyers like Johnnie Cochran worry that

convictions are far from certain

because the prosecutors seem to lack experience dealing with cops.

Somebody with some experience has to stand up and say,

"Look, you can't get away with this.

"This isn't right and we're not going to let it happen."

The prosecution's strategy seems to be to let the violence

of the videotape speak for itself.

But nobody is certain any more what that tape is saying to the jury.

I had been telling my people at Time magazine,

"There's something going on.

"We need to pay attention.

"There's a story here beyond this trial."

I just sensed there was this unrest.

The day started like any other day,

but it really wasn't. We were waiting for the verdict to be

handed down in the trial of the four white police officers

that were charged with beating Rodney King.

How are you feeling?

No comment.

I got up that morning, I said,

"I got to go up there and see what's going on."

So I got on the freeway and start looking for Simi Valley.

It's an all-white town. I only saw white people out there that day.

And they wasn't that kind to me when I was asking for directions.

I wanted to be there to witness it.

And I guess I thought that my being there was going to change something.

We, the jury, in the above entitled action,

find the defendant, Laurence M Powell, not guilty...

COMMOTION

BLEEP!

Man, you got to be kidding!

We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant,

Theodore J Briseno, not guilty of the crime of assault

by force likely to produce great bodily injury with a deadly weapon.

This 29th day of April, 1992, signed by the foreman.

We, the jury, in the above entitled action,

find the defendant, Timothy E Wind,

not guilty of the crime of assault

by force likely to produce great bodily injury

with a deadly weapon...

I was sitting in the bureau the day of the verdict

with all of my white colleagues and friends.

And every time they said, "Not guilty"...

..Stacey C Koon, not guilty...

..what I heard was, "Fuck niggers."

"Not guilty." "Fuck niggers."

-HORNS HONK CROWD:

-There's no peace!

No justice!

I was at Parker Center when the acquittals were announced.

And I recall some high-fives and some fist-pumping in the air.

I mean, there were clearly people who felt that the public

misunderstood them,

that the media misunderstood them and that the jury got it right.

Your reaction to what has happened?

Very happy.

COMMOTION

CROWD SHOUTING

-LAPD are out there protecting us...

-No...

THEY ARGUE

I wanted to believe that the system would work for black people

in general, even though I knew often it doesn't.

But this time, it should work, and it didn't.

And all I felt, like, I just wanted to smack somebody white.

COMMOTION

Your skin colour determines

what degree of justice you have these days.

I don't think the community's going to take this lying down.

I don't think this is going to be good.

No justice in America, not for the blacks!

The justice is for the other man, not for the brother, man!

Pastor, your reaction after that first verdict was read?

Our reaction was almost universal.

Utter...pain.

-CROWD CHANTS:

-Justice! Justice! Justice!

Rodney King did not have a choirboy's record,

but Rodney King had the flesh and blood of decency

and humanity in his heart.

What they were beating is every black person in America.

Don't lay down for this shit!

We had an understanding that the night of the verdict,

we would assemble at First AME Church.

We'd been meeting with the Mayor, to get ready.

This is some fucked up shit that happened, man. This is history.

We go to Westwood. Brentwood. Whitewood.

We were going to send out groups of young men to walk the streets

and keep everything...in order.

SIREN WAILS

I had spent weeks talking to black clergy, gang members,

and they were very up front about what they believed would happen.

"Yeah, there's going to be violence."

So we had everything prepared, we had the 'copter fully fuelled.

It seemed like the only people that didn't know there would be a riot

was the news media and the LAPD.

You're looking at a live picture here at Normandie and Florence.

There's been a mini riot at this location.

There's now been a tactical alert.

Officers have been ordered to stay out of this general area.

We're going to try to get you more information on that.

Even before the verdict,

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates was criticised for preparing

for an arrest in the event four of his officers were acquitted.

But when the rioting began, where were the police and firefighters?

SHOUTING

My most striking memory is members of the police commission desperately

trying to find Gates, which is just shocking, if you think about it -

the verdicts in the Rodney King case were coming down

and the Chief was not at Parker Center.

Gates had driven to this house in ritzy Brentwood

to campaign against a police reform initiative.

Fighting police reform.

That's what he was doing.

He abandoned his post

and left his troops in a shameful state.

SHOUTING

The LAPD response was tepid.

All of the media gets on the Police Department,

the people are screaming, "We have an occupying force."

"Well, gee, we don't want to look like an occupying force,

"so maybe we'll just sit here till it blows over."

That type of crap goes on.

And we were furious.

THEY SHOUT

Chaos at this particular location...

To see the very start of the violence was very troubling.

What made it really troubling was there was no police presence.

There's a van coming under attack. They're pulling the driver out

of the van and they're kicking the driver and beating the driver.

We captured what essentially became the bookend