On June 17, 1994, an estimated 95 million people stayed glued to their television screens as they witnessed the most watched police chase in the history of live video. Four days prior, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were found brutally murdered and within hours of the discovery, police let themselves into the Rockingham estate of Nicole's husband, NFL Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson, without a search warrant. They'd reportedly recovered a bloody glove that matched one left at the murder scene and come across a blood splattered Ford Bronco. Simpson had left town on a late night flight to Chicago so he wasn't around. And for the next several days, authorities were unaware of his whereabouts, until he popped up on Interstate 405 in a white Bronco, similar to the one seen on his property.
In a CNN exclusive aired on Thursday, July 20, a pair of pilots noted for manning the helicopter that followed the low-speed chase reflected on what that experience was like from the sky. While millions at home viewed in suspense, many residents of Los Angeles congregated along the freeway, waving, cheering, and jeering as Simpson reportedly sat in the back seat with a gun to his head. Scores of police cruisers followed at a speed of 35 miles per hour, with an occasional gesture coming from the driver and long time Simpson friend Al Cowlings. There was what people at home saw and heard, what authorities and citizens in the city saw and heard, and then there was what Zoey Tur and Dana Vahle saw and heard from above, which most are not aware of.
"What O.J. didn't know and what the public didn't know is in my ear I'm also listening to the LAPD SWAT team talking on their two-way radios, and what they were saying was, know know, they had him in their sights," says Tur. "Nobody wanted to shoot O.J. Simpson on live television." Tur had earlier conveyed the thoughts running through his mind about the significance he saw in the event that unfolded before his very eyes. The irony was striking. "O.J. Simpson transcended color. He was a celebrity. He was loved. And now, below me, I'm watching a man running from the police, who might very well find himself like many Black men, at the end of a gun and being shot to death," he told CNN.
Simpson would eventually hand himself over that evening, after leading the LAPD to his complex and holding them up in negotiations that took place in his driveway over the next hour. What followed was the "Trial of the Century," which divided America along racial lines after ending with Simpson being freed by a highly controversial verdict of "not-guilty" on October 3 of 1995.
