Nearly 30 years ago, a white Ford Bronco cruising the highways of Los Angeles was enough to fascinate an entire nation: on board,
OJ Simpson
, former American football glory, suspected of murder and followed at low speed by a waterwheel of police cars. On June 17, 1994, the spectacle - broadcast live by television thanks to the helicopters following this pursuit - had captivated some 95 million Americans, more than the final of the American football championship held the same year.
On this Friday evening, home pizza deliveries had exploded for two hours, the time that OJ Simpson, whose death was announced Thursday, finally returned home and surrendered to the dozens of police officers present on site.
“We were all around the station, no one was breathing... We stood there, completely fascinated
,” recalls Kim Goldman, in a podcast a few years old.
Many Los Angeles residents had stationed themselves along the route of the Ford Bronco, driven by a friend, to encourage the fugitive, but Kim Goldman and her father wanted
“him to be arrested to answer for his actions”
. Five days earlier, his brother Ron had been stabbed to death in the company of Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of the football star who was going to be tried for this double murder.
In 1995, at the end of an incredible, over-publicized trial which deeply stirred racial tensions in the country, Simpson was found not guilty by a popular jury. A decision that is still controversial to this day and which continues to outrage Ms. Goldman.
The unforgettable Ford Bronco
Criminally innocent, Orenthal James Simpson was nevertheless found civilly responsible two years later for the deaths of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman. As such, he was ordered to pay more than $33 million in damages to the Goldman family but only paid a small portion.
The athlete has always protested his innocence. He also denied having tried to escape his summons to the police station on the day of the famous chase, claiming to have just wanted to go to the grave of his ex-wife. A bag containing his passport, cash and a 357 Magnum revolver was discovered by investigators in the Ford Bronco. But these items were never included as evidence in the case by the prosecution because the car did not belong to the suspect and no one was able to prove who had placed them there.
Why this fascination? According to Geoffrey Alpert, professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina and specialist in chases, the celebrity of OJ Simpson only increased the interest of a public already naturally hungry for dangerous situations.
In a museum
“We are waiting for the collision. No one wants anyone to die but we like to watch a situation get out of hand
,” he told AFP, comparing this type of chase to stock car racing.
“And the media are even more fascinated by this kind of thing in the United States than elsewhere in the world
,” said the teacher, evoking a Wild West
“where someone robs a bank and the sheriff jumps on his horse to chase him
. ”
The Ford Bronco itself, owned by Al Cowings, Simpson's friend who was driving it on June 17, 1994, is also exhibited by a museum in Tennessee specializing in the criminal history of the United States. In Los Angeles, a company even considered offering sightseeing tours in the car, following the same route as OJ Simpson.