How much really changed after the Simpson trial remains a matter of intense debate among LAPD historians. Some argue that it took years for reform to come, and then only in response to a federal consent decree that followed the Rampart corruption scandal.

In more ways than one, the Simpson trial laid bare an uncomfortable truth about the LAPD's history of brutality and cover-ups against the Black community that some white Angelenos were still questioning even four years after King's beating, according to former Councilmember Zev Yaroslavsky. The Simpson verdict stood as a Rorschach test for views on race and policing, he said.

"It was not preposterous, from a jury's point of view, that some of these defense arguments had some credibility," Yaroslavsky said.

The LAPD's fingerprints were all over the case in other ways.

The gun Simpson clutched during his infamous white Bronco chase was registered to then-LAPD Lt. Earl Paysinger, who worked security for the owner of the Los Angeles Raiders and would go on to become assistant chief.

L.A. County Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, who presided over the trial, was married to Margaret "Peggy" York, who rose through the LAPD to become its first woman deputy chief.

Simpson had a cozy relationship with officers from the nearby police station, whom he frequently invited to his house in Brentwood for barbecues and pool parties. Some cops who worked in that division were star-struck by Simpson, occasionally asking for his autograph even as they were repeatedly called to his house for domestic disturbances.

"LAPD at that time was probably at its lowest, just on the heels of Rodney King," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor. "There wasn't a lot of professionalism."

While the King and Rampart scandals led to numerous studies and blue-ribbon commissions aimed at changing the way the LAPD polices the city, Simpson's trial was "treated as a celebrity case," she said.

Levenson said that though it remains a work in progress, the LAPD has reformed itself significantly since the trial.

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