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 of Vagina's poster.

So anyway, all right, shall we? I've got one, I'm ready to go. What about this? I mean, I've had like 18 months to think about. So, of course, I have a tagline. It's been eight months, which is the length of the O.J. 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.

Yeah, you're welcome. You ready? Yes. OK, welcome to You're Wrong about the podcast that takes you away from home, but always brings you back.

Oh. If you like, nudge 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 or something. 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.

And the majority of our correspondence is still about all the words that I'm mispronouncing.

So some things change or some things don't. Yeah, I am Michael Hobbs.

I'm a reporter for the Huffington Post. I'm Sarah Marshall. I'm working on a book about the satanic panic. And we are on Patreon at Patrón Dotcom Slash. You're wrong about. And there's lots of other ways to support the show and there's also ways to not support the show.

And you can also support the show spiritually by giving money to sex workers.

Yes. Or whatever else you want to support. And we think that's chill and good. You go. 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.

We are. I'm so happy. Don't you feel like we're a soap opera that has arrived at a wedding or something like that?

I was going to say, I feel like we're jumping the shark, 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 is the trial, too.

I guess I would love you to think back over just the previous nine episodes that we've done. And this is tell me what you think are salient points.

Well, we followed O.J. 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.

Nice. And when last we left the story, O.J. 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 A.C. 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 I 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 where they have been suspended for for a very long time.

Yes, great summarizing. And my plan after we're done with this episode is to take an O.J. hiatus and then pick out the story again and like a season two. And so we're going to talk about what was going on in Bob Ashton's house, immediately leading up to the Bronco chase. But first, we're going to return to one of our gospels, which is the gospel of Paul.

And first of all, bring us up to speed about just who is Paula Barbieri and what do you remember about the way O.J. kind of said goodbye to her before the Bronco chase begins?

Paul Barbieri is OJs girlfriend who he was seeing before the death of Nicole. He had basically decided to stop seeing her after all of this happened.

I'm going to rewind and replay for you Paula Barbera's goodbye a scene with O.J. as she depicted it, because I want to compare it then to what we learned according to a different source. OK, so she says Acee hands her like two thousand dollars in cash and he says O.J. wanted me to give you this so you can get on a plane and go home. And O.J. is walking Paul out to her friend Tom's Jeep. And Paula is saying, I love you, I love you.

I'll be there for you. OK, open the passenger door. A gentleman to the end, I thought grimly and closed it after me. I held my hand up to the window and O.J. put his long fingers up to mine. Then O.J. said goodbye to me in a way I 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 O.J. claimed that Allman cheated, I'd point to that young man as proof that he was wrong.

Now you promise me something, OK? 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? It's very Casablanca, isn't it? It is.

So OK, we are now going to turn to an American Tragedy by Lawrence Schiller, which I am very excited to tell you, use as many sources and as basically the book chronicling the defense team, but is most essentially the gospel, according to Bob Cardassian, who is five Cardassian.

David Schwimmer. Right.

OK, for those who don't know what. That means help us out.

He's a friend who is a lawyer, but not like a lawyer lawyer, and he acts as OJs personal life coach throughout this and is like tangentially on his legal team, but is not like a key member of his legal team. Yeah.

Or he's like he and that he seems to be the one who is like O.J. is kind of buddy. Yeah. And he is Kim's dad also. Yes. Kim Kardashian. Yes. Yes. And he's the first Kardashian. He's like the little fucks mom of Kurdish.

I can tell you about that Don Bluth kick lately. Yeah, I really have.

All right, Mike, would you like to hear about the David Schwimmer cameo in this?

Really? Yes. What?

OK, I shall read to you now from Jeffrey Toobin the rest of his life, which tells us that Bob Shapiro is 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 and I believe the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

OK, 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 Has a Role played by a very young actor at the start of his career named David Schwimmer.

Oh, that's so satisfying to know. Yeah. And then David Schwimmer will, of course, go on to play Bob Kardashian and the People versus O.J. Simpson, the Ryan Murphy Show.

And the world will go on to forget the existence of the movie, Wolf, entirely.

OK, so American tragedy. The Lawrence Schiller book has O.J. and Paula BARBREE 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 all right. A.C. has some money to get you back to Florida. They gave her the money and the book says Paula was crying but wouldn't get in the car.

A.C., give her the money and get her out of here. Simpson said almost angrily. Cardioversion in Cowlings half escort's half body guards got Paula into the car. It was embarrassing. Paula is depicting herself. And O.J. is having this fairly prolonged, sweet moment where he's like, you remember that guy you told me about back home? Find him, marry him instead. And in this version, O.J. is basically just trying to get rid of her.

Well, which one do you think is more plausible? 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. Right? He's not making a ton of sense. He's seeming kind of affectless. It's interesting that Paula writes a scene where he's able to really, like, show up for her. Right. But on the other hand, he's historically able to do that kind of thing kind of on autopilot.

So, like, yeah, it seems like weird to me that, like, the man writing a book about like the defense team who seem like very uninterested in politics generally, like she's barely depicted in this lifetime. We're ready to believe that, like it happened. But but like Polly's version of it makes it maybe nicer than it was.

Yeah. Or they had that conversation two days previously and she sort of poured into the scene because it's like it's narratively more convincing that way. That's true, too.

That happens a lot in memoir and in the way that we remember things like we unprompted well, I think subconsciously kind of stitched together parts of different memories to make a coherent story that kind of depicts the whole of our relationship. Yeah, yeah. And if she's giving herself that moment at all inaccurately, then like, whatever.

Sure. Yeah. So let's talk about what happens after Paul leaves. OK, all right. So it's in seventeen. OK, has been staying in Bob Cardassian 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 on 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 seventeen, the house is woken up by Bob Shapiro calling to talk to Bob Cardassian.

The two bobs are conferring. Bob Shapiro says, I've got bad news. They've issued an arrest warrant for O.J. He has to surrender by 11:00 and immediately, Bob Cardassian by his own account. It's like. If you want me to tell them and Shapir is like, why don't you wait until I get there? So Bob Kardashian tells his fiancee Deniece, who tells him you should call Acee to sort of get someone around to have a cooling effect on O.J. because ASES is on his best and oldest friends.

And Anees also is like, why don't you get the guns out of the house, Bob? And I was like, yeah, I agree.

It's like it's all kind of darkly funny because in this is an implicit acknowledgement that O.J. 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.

It's a very good point. It's almost like an acknowledgement that O.J.. Yeah. Could have done this, like we all kind of know.

Yeah, well, that'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 are just like, oh, some various things could happen. Yeah. And so Bob Shapiro gets to Bob Kurdistans house. The two bobs are united. They like take their Bob rings and put them together and are like a form of gently delivering bad news.

And then they go up to O.J., his room. And Bob Shapiro is like O.J. The police have called me and you're going to have to turn yourself in. And according to her action, O.J. just like basically doesn't react OK. And she appears 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 9:00. And then Bob Shapiro says, if you have anything you want to tell us, O.J., this is the time.

This is the last time you were going to be alone with your attorneys with no eavesdropping. Oh, and according to American Tragedy, O.J. says, I've told you everything before. I've got nothing to hide, OK? 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.

Yeah. Colombian drug traffickers. Fayre get involved. We all know how much more convincing version of this story. It was the Colombian drug traffickers that are after Rosnay. And anyway. So Bob Shapiro, I mean. Well, OK, let's 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 on to inform your client and you're like the police needed to turn yourself in. In 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 is 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 do you do?

I mean, I struggle to put myself in the shoes of Bob Shapiro just because so many because he wouldn't have taken this job because you're like, why would I be doing any of this? Right. OK, first of all, I would be trimming my eyebrows.

Secondly, I would not be representing somebody like O.J. Simpson.

Secondly, I'll be massaging whatever they put into catcher's mitts to make them supple.

My face, I mean, I don't know. I mean, isn't the whole thing with lawyering that, like, you have to believe your client, even if it's a little far fetched?

Well, 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, OK, what if we go for diminished capacity? That could work, right? And he'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 Johnnie Cochran emerges as O.J. is most important lawyer.

But, yeah, Bob Shapiro alienates himself from O.J. pretty early in the game by not being faithful enough to O.J. is emotional. Reality is basically, you know, at this point, you know, they spent a few days kind of talking. I think he can gather that O.J. 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.

Yeah, 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. Yeah, that's where I am, too. So I guess we have a good job for. Yes, but we are.

So anyway, Bob Shapiro chooses the option of accepting OJs 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. OK, he is he kind of changes the subject, which I feel like. Is the response of the person who doesn't know how to respond throughout time? Yes, as we remind ourselves, every Thanksgiving. And so, OK, 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. Oh, OK. 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 O.J. writes these notes that eventually are going to be read to the American people.

Later that day, O.J. finds a tape recorder of Bob Kardashians and he starts recording a message on there, kind of like how Felicity and Felicity would send cassette tape journals to the Getting Gruffalo character. We have a transcription of this. An American tragedy. I'm going to read to you from it. OK. O.J. says, oh, boy, I don't know how I ended up here. Here'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 and Paula, my kids love me. Everybody loves 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 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 ten minutes long. Oh, God. Thank you for not reading the whole thing.

It sounds like, Michelle, just these like long monologues, like these words, repeated phrases.

Yeah. You people are not very entertaining when they're in their depths. Yeah. 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. Oh, God, please remember me is 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?

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 eight 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.

Yeah, I think it's like the authentic sadness of someone totally without perspective. Yeah, yeah. 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. Right. Like he's very sad about he's like, I don't feel any goodness on myself. Like, I don't feel like a good guy. And it's like, yes, yes.

You're not right now because you murdered people. So, yes, that identity has been taken away from you. But is that the reason that you're sad?

Like that's what remorse is supposed to feel like? Like you're supposed to feel bad. It feels like authentic evidence that he doesn't get it. Yeah. You know, that he's like this is about me and my pain. And it's like it's not.

But like that's why you killed them in the first place. Yeah.

Because your emotions, however fleeting, were bigger than like two people's right to continue like this.

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. And that's a good point. You're right.

He did 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.

If only I had called Kato into the house more and then told them to watch football with me and then talked over the football.

I told every woman within five minutes who I wanted to date. I was lonely. I was like, if only I had like, leaned in harder to the like I'm lonely pitch. Yeah.

OK, so OK. 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 O.J. because Shapiro wants them to photograph his body before he's taken into custody. Do you know why they're doing that?

Oh, is that in case he's beaten by the cops?

That's a really good guess. No, that doesn't come off. What they're doing is. He's trying to take photographs of his body to show that he is uninjured, which they are going to argue is proof that he wasn't the assailant who killed Ron and Nicole. Oh, God. Because they're like, how could their killer have escaped unscathed except for this big cut on his right finger, obviously, except the blood he was dripping on his way home.

Yeah, except for that. Ignore, ignore. That's right. 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. Yeah, let's do a second autopsy.

Every hen house, dog, house, tree house for five miles doing the Tommy Lee Jones good.

Yeah, I watched that movie a while ago and I was like these men that are in love.

OK, so OK.

The doctors come to give him a physical and Bob Cardassian ever the practical friend, it's like OK, it's like almost 11. You need to turn yourself in to the police by 11. How do you think O.J. Simpson reacts?

I want to say negatively.

O.J. says, according to my connections account, why should I hurry? What can they do to me?

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 Marcia has been saying since day one, right.

That like, why why are you being like, well, if it's not too much trouble, O.J., can we go ahead and a ding dong arrest allegedly do nothing for this.

Didley on the 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, like, pick up his lost watch or something.

Yeah, OK. Is like the LAPD are my pals. They come over and use my tennis court. They ignore me beating my wife.

Right. The law has never applied to me before. Why should it be now? Yeah.

And Bob Kardashian apparently says, you're right. Take your time. What can they do? He's like, yeah, yeah, good point.

And Bob Shapiro is like, no, O.J. like we do like my word kind of mean something. Like I would like the police to continue to believe me, like I work with them. Right. So, yes, we do have to get you there by 11:00, like, I'm sorry to ruin the fun. And so. Oh, yeah. Apparently accepts this.

And Bob Shapiro keeps saying, like, please hurry because he wants O.J. to arrive at Parker Center, quote, in his Mercedes, well-dressed, calm, dignified.

But if an impatient police contingent found them in Encino, O.J. would be hustled away in handcuffs like a common criminal. No one was willing to say the words, but they hung in the air.

I mean, yeah, this is he understands that this is a press event as well as a criminal justice event. Yeah. And you need to produce images that are congruent with innocence and the perp walk, which is bullshit in all circumstances. Yeah.

Talk about the perp walk, actually, because some people don't hear those words and immediately have a clear mental image.

Well, this thing where they basically parade a suspect from like whatever 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 March one place to another.

Right. 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. Yeah.

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, quote unquote, a common criminal.

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 7th being like, OK, I'm 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. Yeah.

Good thing there's no chance of some kind of nationwide media event that highlights O.J. potential guilt.

Yeah. So anyway, they're they're doing the exam. They're trying to keep the mood light. Bob Kardashian makes a joke that Reebok called and asked, OK, not to wear their shoes for the arrest warrant, but no one laughed. So I love that Bob Kardashian and Kato Kaelin are both the kind of like. Yeah, beautiful like member of a big family jokester holder together of things. You the comedy waiters of our story.

Yeah. The police call again and they put the police on with sulpher steam. The psychiatrist. They also put sulfadiazine on the phone with Marcha, like they appear to be passing the phone to him and being like PSol waste some time, just say some stuff. And so they put the police on his cell and he's like, I can't give you the address. I'm sorry. And the detective is talking to says that they've issued an arrest warrant. So that means you're harboring a fugitive.

Right. So Bob Shapiro takes the phone and finally gives them by Ashton's address. And so the cops are coming now. OK, so we've got a hard deadline.

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, which it is.

Yes. Which it is so accurate.

And also, you know, it feels like it's OK. It's denial, right. Like he has to also be like this isn't a serious matter. Right. And at this point, Bob Shapiro tells Bob Kardashian, like, the cops are coming, got O.J. ready, got him to shower, put him in a nice suit.

Do you put him in the 90s pants that are way too big, that everybody for thalamic, like trustworthy gets some huge, massive docker's.

So he sees off, Paula. And then Bob Kardashian finds O.J. sitting in the room where he has been sleeping, which is one of Bob's daughters 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 of her comes and sees that O.J. is holding a gun and feels that O.J. is potentially going to commit suicide. And so he's like, let's pray, which seems like a good hostage. Negotiators killing time tactics. Yes. And but it doesn't really seem to work. And O.J. 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. OK, is looking at two very bad choices. Either he kills himself and 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 O.J. down and talk him out of killing himself by finding fault with all of the places O.J. picks in which to kill himself.

Oh, so he's critiquing the logistics, like, don't do it there.

Read you some of the same first urges, like, I'm going to kill myself in this room. And then Bob's like, you can't. This is my daughter's room. That's fair. 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.

This is like not funny, but it's darkly funny. Yeah, I feel like it is in the way of your let go Bob Kardashian. Like he just has to do such ridiculous stuff to try and play for time. And it's just like having a child who's like trying to run away and you're like, don't forget to pack all these canned goods. Right. You will never make it with that. And you're like trying to figure out how to make the little suitcase too heavy for that to carry.

Right. 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 OK, says I'd be baking in the sun. I don't want to bake in the sun. What?

And at this point, he's actually kind of contradicting himself. 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 I was like, I just don't want to be baking in the sun.

Well, and so they're like, OK, championship contrarianism or something like, I don't want to kill over this reason.

And you're like, that's not that good of a reason.

It's it's very like it just feels very like a moment of true friendship. You know, whatever else you can say about the contents of it, we're 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 telling yourself you can't do it there.

This goes on for a really long time.

Yes, I feel bad for laughing, but it's really weird, right?

Well, 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. Right. And oftentimes the impulse passes.

Right. It's just like getting him through the moment. Yeah. And Bob's like, why don't you go to the church? You were married there. And so he's like, great, I'll go there and kill myself. And so Bob Cardassian has been playing along to this point. But now that someone's like, yeah, OK, well, take me there, let's do this. Bob is like, no. We can't let this happen, and he's like Acey, we've got to stop him.

And finally, Bob kind of gives it up to God. He's like, you take care of him, see, like you're in charge now. And then he's like, let's all take pictures.

What, like they're at Disneyland or whatever. I think he's just playing for time. I think Bob Cardassian is going to play God pictures and then next he'll be like Ovaltine. You can't leave without all that.

So they take these pictures now courtesy and turns his back on his friend of twenty four years. A man should be allowed to kill himself if he wants to. He growls to himself, Tadashi, and 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.

So they take these photos, Cardassian goes upstairs, and then the next thing they know, O.J. and A.C. are gone. Hmm. OK, yeah.

I've heard actually and may have left his license. Laughs 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.

What I. So then they're gone.

The police show up. They're like, we'd like to take O.J. And now they look for him. They can't find him. They realize A.C. is gone, too. And then the news breaks that he's gone. And let me actually let me share some video with you now. OK, so we're skipping ahead a little bit to win. The white Bronco was first broadcast on the news because the first news helicopter to find the Bronco was piloted by Zoe and Marie Carter, who were experienced helicopter journalists in L.A. And helicopter journalism was apparently a pretty robust field there because people in Los Angeles were used to televised car chases.

Oh, right. And with 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's is kind of like novel thing where like something from L.A. suddenly like jumps to a national experience, which I guess also happens with like weird donuts and stuff.

This was the first step in the path that led to those like Fox specials on like the most dangerous car chases or whatever. Oh, yeah.

And and also, you know, the cops, Shannara cops have been around for years at the time. But this is like the rickety roller coaster that we are now trapped on.

Yeah. Crime as entertainment.

Crime is entertainment and also like the American viewers love of sort of the communal viewing experience and processing news as a live event. And this is a really powerful example of this, because this was first picked up by choppers in L.A. 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 you can keep watching it and like the tiny TV, the picture in a picture, but it's very hard to follow basketball that way.

This was something that was deemed by various turnovers of whatever switches need to be turned for this to happen, where they are being seen by what turned out to be an audience of ninety five million people.

Whoa, that's a third of the country. Isn't that incredible?

Well, for context, that year's Super Bowl audience was about ninety million. Oh, wow. So O.J. Simpson never made it to the Super Bowl, but if he had, he would have had a smaller audience than he had in this moment. Unbelievable. Do you have any memory of this? Because you were like eleven, twelve?

OK, yeah. I remember my parents beckoning me to the TV to be like, look at this.

I didn't know who O.J. Simpson was or I had heard nothing of this, but I knew it was a huge deal because I remember we watched it for, like, that evening.

Yeah. And what do you remember seeing? Like, what did it look like?

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 or 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 thirty five or something, that it was like not a high speed chase.

Yeah, it's funny that it's called the chase because I don't know if it ever technically was. It's like right there following him.

It's like a moving negotiation. More than a real. Yes, because he's not like speeding down streets, trying to shake them.

It's a moving standoff. Right. But anyway. Yeah, so let's watch this footage. This is the Bronco chase. Just imagine you're a sports ball fan, Mike, and this is what you're watching if you want to do. One, two, three, go.

Yeah, let's do it. Three to one. Go. All right, we're seeing basketball, it's a red team and a white team. Oh, black screen, special report.

Special report, that beautiful 90s news graphic.

I love California Highway Patrol is in pursuit of a white Ford Bronco, and it might contain O.J. Simpson and a friend.

It's yet just helicopter footage of this car driving on an empty freeway.

What does this remind you of? Because it reminds me of something very specific speed, the movie speed. That's really not what you were thinking of. I was going to say it reminds me of watching the footage of September 11 and watching the news commentators talking as they're watching. Yeah, because you can hear them processing in real time what they're seeing and what you're seeing right there, just having to talk through stuff and to keep talking, because that's their main job, apparently.

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 it's driving on a freeway. I know you can hear how empty that language surely is.

We now have, like, what, five cop cars following behind him. And are they gonna to be. No, unfortunately. Yeah, it's funny because I have that mental image, too, and I don't know why do I imagine that they're like geese?

Oh yeah. There's no other cars on the freeway.

If you were trying to watch this basketball game, I mean, I can't even see the ball, you know, and they just said O.J. Simpson's holding a gun to his head.

Yeah. So the public has a lot of information, actually. Then 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, like, oh, so they think he's on the way to his mother's house.

OK, yeah, OK.

Is talking to the police. And then these news anchors are being told that O.J. is saying, I want to see my mother take me back to Rockingham so I can see my mother. And that's his demand.

Man, L.A. is big. He's been around for ages.

OK, so 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 O.J.. Oh, yeah.

He says people are getting out of their cars and waving at O.J. Simpson.

It looks like a parade, doesn't it? Yeah. Oh, and look at that overpass. Do you see that? Oh, yeah.

Wow. Packed overpass of people watching slash waving.

This broadcast has been going on for eleven minutes, which means that he had 11 minutes to be hearing about this on the radio. See, look at all those cars. Yeah. They're seeing it on TV. They're figuring out where O.J. is going because they know where basically on the freeway he is and they know that he wants to see his mother. So, you know, they know that he's going back to Rockingham, presumably. So they know where he's going to be passing.

Pretty much, yes.

Like a marathon route or something. Yeah, exactly.

It's it's like he's got the ball again. Yeah, right. And he's running and he's he's got a, you know, wrong sport, but he's got to get home. Right. 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 O.J. flooding's.

And so the argument that we're going to see about O.J. is 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 O.J. 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 are like, this is wrong. I'm I see my high horse.

I'm I'm getting it from the stable. And I am sadly not my friends.

And I have no idea what the feeling was and 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 save the police, quote, why should I hurry? What can they do to me? 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. Yeah, a knee jerk disbelief of the police is no more illogical than a knee jerk belief of what the police say.

Yes, the police like the LAPD especially lie. Yeah. Like even among police, they're known for lying and they're known for brutality. Right. And that's especially obvious to everyone, because this is three years after the beating of Rodney King. Right? The vicious beating of a man for the crime of speeding. Right. OK, I'm going to turn off the sound. The length of video keep going. OK, so what do you think of all that?

I think it was a big deal because the media made it a big deal.

Right? Like, it's not like people were watching 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 right.

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 because the only reason that this is significant is because of his celebrity, that I imagine there are cases like this in L.A. relatively frequently and we don't interrupt NBA finals for them.

There are much better cases in L.A.. Yeah, yeah. So it's really the actual story here is like troubled celebrity wanted by cops, which is really not a national story.

But that's you know, that's the entire dynamic of the O.J. 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.

So do you think that this is like that the media made this a story?

I mean, 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, I believe, murder.

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. So you can imagine O.J. being treated the same way.

What's interesting is O.J. was not even that big of a fucking celebrity. He was retired. He had had bit parts in the naked gun. Yeah.

Like surely a lower level of celebrity than, like, recording be my baby. Right.

It's like pretty incredible that the networks dedicated, I don't know, four hours to this.

This is like an hour, OK, but yeah, an hour of like and we're watching it and like you're like this is boring. Yes. There's literally nothing remarkable about this car. Right.

I mean, you can imagine this not being on TV and the O.J. Simpson trial playing out differently. Oh, yeah.

You know, it would have been in the newspapers that you can imagine it being like page twelve, 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. Yes.

If you show something to almost one 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 because he's going to trial, you know, then people will be like, I remember that. Yeah. And like, it's significant to me, like I was part of it and therefore I'm invested. So, like, let's watch this trial. Like, how much of it was that?

I think that's a very important question. Right. 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. Yeah.

Do you want to know what's going on inside the car? Yeah. What do we know about that so shortly after?

OK, and you take off. OK, who has a cell phone with him? Calls Nicole's dad, who is at Nicole's condo, going through her things. And she's like, I'm going to come by and Nicole's. That is like, OK. And then he calls the police. So by the time O.J. got cynical towards 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 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.

Yes, we're that he's empathizing. You don't get that a lot at like we're looking for this suspect press conferences.

Yeah, talk about that, my friend. Figure out what's at the bottom of this tote bag.

It's strikingly different language than they use when they're looking for, like the D.C. 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.

We can here. The figure of the killer is the district attorney is having a press conference.

Well, 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.

Yeah, it's interesting because just looking at 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're 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 wrote. And they always are, you know, again and again, I agree with you, you know, 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 as human, like you're allowed to do that in 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 like, you know, they take you out for a vegan meal and you're like, that was really good and I feel really great. I enjoyed that. Like, yes.

What if you felt this way more often?

I mean, it's also the power of wealth, right? It's like wealth and celebrity. It's wealth and celebrity are the only forces that can overcome grace.

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 O.J. Simpson. Right. And like maybe no one else. Maybe like they they feel no positive feelings for any other black person ever. But maybe they do feel that for O.J. Simpson because he managed to be that for them.

It is interesting thinking about the ways in which his celebrity is specifically coded as appealing to men.

Yes, because we do get a lot of these, like the American tragedy of the sports star brought down in is almost like Shakespearean tones when it comes to O.J. the great man brought down.

Yeah, but then we tend not to have those same narratives of, like women when they fuck up. Right. It's clear that the emotions of the men who were running media organizations is wrapped up in all of this.

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 adulation for him means that they appear to be willing to kind of brush aside the fact that he appears to have murdered his wife. Right. 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 a five p.m.. So Bob Shapiro begins his press conference by talking directly to O.J. and says, for the sake of your children, please surrender immediately.

And as you know, being calm and being his his Bob Shapiro and also maintaining this idea because he's also playing to the cameras to some point to. So he also wants to reinforce O.J. in a sense at this point.

Yes. And also reinforces that incompetence, because then he is talking to the cameras and he's like, I have arranged many situations where some of my defendant has to turn themselves in. And, for example, I arrange the surrender of Eric Menendez.

This is going on his show real. And it is at this point that Bob Kardashian reads O.J. his letter to the press and public.

I'm not I'm not clear on his decision making process.

Like he doesn't even know if he's alive. He doesn't know where he is. Bob Kardashian apparently is pretty convinced that O.J. could very likely be dead right now. And then also, I feel like if he thinks, well, maybe O.J. 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. OK, but anyway, Bob reads a 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 live. My momma taught me to do unto others. I treated people the way I wanted to be treated. I've always tried to be up and humble. So why is this happening? Oh, God, 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 her friends will confirm that I've been totally loving and understanding of what she's been going through. Not true. At times I felt like a battered husband or boyfriend. Oh my God, I loved her, made that clear to everyone and would take whatever to make us work.

God, he had to throw that in, didn't he? Yeah. You know, sometimes I felt like a battered husband because, 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.

Yeah, he couldn't not say it. I felt like a battered husband. Unbelievable. 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. Jesus Christ. Thanks for making my life special. I hope I help yours. Peace and love OJ. And then inside the O and the OJ is a happy face.

It's like an Elwood's move.

I think that's how he signs autographs. OK, and so as Bob Kardashian 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. Slowly, I'm really interested in heroes like Jack Nicholson, interests like and I also love that he apparently watched Wolf the night before, which is a movie where Jack Nicholson is a werewolf.

And then the next day, Bob Cardassian is like, how do I read this letter? And Bob Shapiro is like, I just got to do a Nicholson. Just I he sold me on that werewolf.

And so they read the letter and then they take questions.

And then one reporter asks, why did Bob Kardashian read the letter at all? Fair question, because it doesn't make O.J. look very innocent. Yes. And Bob Shapiro says we read it because it is the only words that we have from O.J.. Jeffrey Toobin says this answer says much about the care and feeding of celebrity clients. O.J. 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 O.J.?

And he said, my personal words with him were of a complementary nature to the way I had been with him.

And for him to thank me for everything I had done all day was like always be selling.

Bob, you know, what he said to my rates are really low and I'm always on time.

And so after the press conference, Bob Kardashian goes back to Rockingham, which is being guarded by officers, and they're like, we can't let you in. And he's like, I'm O.J. Simpson's doctor. Like, OK, doctor. Yes. And so they let him in and he goes to talk to Chasen and are now OJs children from his first marriage. And he's basically like, I'm going to level with you guys. O.J. 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.

So he just tells them that he apparently 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 runs away and starts to cry and ah now just sits there 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. It's like, wait a minute. Yeah, there he is.

Oh Jesus Christ.

That I don't know if that's funny or just ironic or what, but my involuntary reaction is to laugh at that. It's dark. It's really dark and weird.

And then Jason apparently is you know, he comes out of the bathroom where he's been crying and it's like, come on, Dad, come on. So, like, everyone knows what this is, he's making a run. So at two p.m. 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 six thirty, heading north on five. When they see the white Bronco and they call it in.

Their names are Cathy and Chris. Thank you, Cathy and Chris. And so at the same time, Detective Larry Poole is heading north on five when he also sees a white Bronco and then quickly reads the plate, radios it in is like, OK, so he pulls up to where he's driving alongside Al Cowlings. Al looks at him and according to American Tragedy, smiles nervously.

I'm imagining like a Bugs Bunny, like cartoonish shrug, like, I don't know what I'm doing here I am officer.

And then another cop car shows up. And then a quote from American Tragedy. The Bronco stopped and heavy traffic at Grand Avenue in Orange County. Cowlings glance 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 when the officers found themselves behind Cowlings, again traveling down the freeway.

The chase had begun. Cowlings dialed nine one one and he says, this is A.C. I have O.J. in the car right now. We're OK, but you've got to tell them his 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 are 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 that like 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. Right?

It's like watching the Indy 500 like something terrible could happen or it could just be really boring.

And whatever happened, it was going to end up on TV.

Yeah. So the news choppers find the white Bronco.

Did they get that from the radio scanner? How did they find that out? Oh, I can, I can I can tell you exactly. So so it's her and her wife Marika, who kind of are the pioneers of L.A. Freeway Chase helicopter news. Zoe and Marika have the same hunch that various members of O.J. defense team have, which is that he has gone to the cemetery where Nicole has buried. And so they take their KB's chopper to the cemetery.

They notice that the cops have staked out the cemetery and then they're like, OK, so he probably is avoiding a stakeout, but let's sort of check out the area. And so that is when they spot O.J. 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 this flock of helicopters following him as well.

And that's when we lose our basketball. 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 L.A. geography very well are kind of lost. Larry King is talking about this life. He had really thought that North Korea would be the big news story that week. And he did not think that his acquaintance, O.J. Simpson, would stay in the news for a very long.

But he was wrong. And so because he's doing his show from L.A., 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 case so he can see where this is going. Right.

Like where on the tic tac toe board of freeways.

This is people who knew the geography is there 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 his house at Rockingham, which he does do. And then I'll read to you from the run of his life, Cowlings indeed left eye four or five at sunset. Then he dodge traffic for about a mile until he could make a right turn on to the privileged hilly precincts of Brentwood, with the helicopters still tracking him among the gated homes.

Cowlings then made a left on the Ashford from which he could turn into O.J. his driveway. Cowlings, however, almost didn't make it. There were so many television satellite trucks parked on Tiny. Actually, the cowlings had to slow to nearly a full stop to think his way past them. Whoa. With dusk fast approaching, Cowlings finally managed to pull into the driveway at three six Rockingham. The Broncos flashers illuminated the cobblestones in the driveway from which earlier that week police had scraped blood samples away shortly before eight p.m..

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 O.J. is still on the road and prepare to take him in.

OK, so they have a team of about twenty five guys waiting for him there. Wow. All of these people are sent away except for his son Jason and five Cardassian. And the LAPD also invited a photographer for a Time in Life magazine.

Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus Christ.

So kiss the Essentialists, your eldest son, your oldest friend, a SWAT team and hydrosphere for Time magazine.

It's amazing how both the lawyers and the cops are deliberately using the press.

Once again, we're getting a tasting sampler. Yeah, of all of this. So when Al Cowlings and O.J. pull into Rockingham, Chasen 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 Chase in a way.

And so. According to Jeffrey Toobin, a couple of police officers come and basically dragged Jason back into the house and Al Cowlings says of O.J., he's got a gun. Don't do anything stupid. Get the police away. And so, again, we're in the standoff situation where the fugitive is making demands and the police are actually somewhat interested in negotiating.

Right. The famously soft hand of American SWAT teams, whatever you need. Yeah.

Do you need a back rub? So meanwhile, it's getting dark. These news helicopters are hovering above his house, still trying to get their footage. Cato, the dog who has been at Rockingham, is 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 O.J. and O.J. says, I want to speak with my mother.

That's my demand. And at that moment, the battery in his phone goes dead nice. So Al Cowlings leaves the car, goes into the house to get a new cell phone for O.J. And it is at this point that O.J. decides to call it, say, 50, 3:00 p.m. 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 O.J. does what Toobin says as he staggered into the foyer and collapsed into the officer's arms. I'm sorry, guys. I'm 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 O.J. 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. OK, and so it's dark outside. No one sees O.J. with handcuffs on him being taken out of the house by the police. No one sees him being perp walked.

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 we're going to leave O.J. for now?

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, yeah. 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, OK? And yeah, I guess I don't know, Mike, I clothes where for now, though, by asking you, like with 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. 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. Yes.

I mean, the amount of leeway even in this situation that the police are giving him is remarkable. Like here's some orange juice, O.J. Like, what does it suggest about what?

Like how they see him. Yeah. What kind of person do you treat this way?

I mean, in other scenarios, American 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 anything in other countries. The SWAT teams 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 OJs house, like, yeah, use the bathroom.

Don't forget to wash your hands. Yeah. Whenever you're ready, O.J.. It's incredible.

It is. And it's also it suggests to me that, like, they cannot bring themselves to truly fear him. Yeah.

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.

Yeah. I guess find it inspiring, you know, because the police are just like we just are doing our best. And it's like you say that. But remember a time when 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?

Imagine all the people you know, I guess like I mean, it's my dream that every defendant is treated like O.J. Simpson. I want everyone to have a Johnnie Cochran. And if they want I want everyone to have a Bob Shapiro and, you know, is useful for a brief period and is like having up potential defense witnesses in the freakin Beverly Wilshire.

Right. I me the story of O.J. has always been there's just so much happening here. There's so many stories that were lost at the time and that we got 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 just let's order the O.J. special for everybody. Let's make that like the like the standard menu. It's easy if you try.