O.J. Simpson stopped America in its tracks

On Oct. 3, 1995, at 1 p.m. ET, America stopped in its tracks.

From living rooms to break rooms to classrooms, people huddled around televisions and radios to find out the fate of Orenthal James Simpson, a Hall of Fame running back-turned-charismatic television personality, movie actor and double murder defendant.

Some 95 million people had tuned in to a low-speed chase on the freeways of Los Angeles back in June of 1994, five days after the bodies of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were found in a grizzly murder scene outside her Brentwood condo. The helicopter footage preempted broadcasts on nearly every channel, even splitting a screen with the NBA Finals.

By the time of the verdict, after a bitter, contentious, racially and emotionally charged nine-month trial that made stars, changed society, picked open scabs and divided opinions, an estimated 150 million Americans tuned in on television, perhaps the largest audience of all time and so large it was impossible to accurately calculate.

The 1995 trial of O.J. Simpson captured the attention of all of America, with more than 150 million watching the verdict. (Vince Bucci/Pool Photo via AP, File)

It included no less than President Bill Clinton, who watched with staff in the anteroom of the Oval Office and then issued a statement calling for respect for the judicial system.

Simpson was found not guilty, setting off anger and arguments by many who thought he got away with murder to this very day, when 28½ years later — including a nine-year prison stint on a conviction for armed robbery and kidnapping that centered on his own memorabilia — Simpson’s family announced he had died from cancer at age 76.

It is almost impossible to fathom how big the O.J. Simpson case was, how closely followed his trial was, how powerful (in every imaginable way) his acquittal was. In a nation of now divided attention spans, it’s possible nothing could ever be as big again.

Simpson was all…

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Publish date : 2024-04-11 16:44:35

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