OJ Simpson's trial cast a long shadow on the LAPD -- but brought few changes

Civil rights attorney Carl Douglas, who was a part of Simpson's defense team, said LAPD leaders often struck a defensive tone in the weeks after the verdict, a familiar circling of the wagons in the face of criticism from outsiders after previous controversial and racist incidents.

"Everyone knew that Mark Fuhrman was a potential powder keg," Douglas said. "The zeal with which they wanted to convict O.J. Simpson in the face of many high-profile losses the department had suffered certainly caused them to ignore the problems."

The case's most enduring legacy, he said, was in changes to the department's rules on evidence collection and storage — advancements that might have helped avoid the embarrassing admission at trial that a detective walked out of LAPD headquarters with a vial of Simpson's blood in his pocket. The case also helped usher in the age of DNA testing.

Former LAPD chief Bernard Parks, an assistant chief at the time, remembers it from the other side of the divide. Whatever "self-inflicted wounds" emerged during the trial, from the mishandling of evidence to the disclosure of the Fuhrman tapes, were the result of individual failures, not deeper problems within the department, he said.

"Procedures were in place; people just didn't follow them," Parks said. "In my judgment, Fuhrman should've never been in a position to embarrass the department. People knew full well what his background was."

Bill Scott had just made detective after about six years with the LAPD when the Simpson verdict was announced. Looking back, Scott said the case was another reminder of the racial tensions that have flared up throughout the department's history.

"It raised the awareness of … the intersection of race, the criminal justice system, money, wealth," said Scott, now the chief of police in San Francisco. But he said he wouldn't call it a watershed moment in the department's history, on par with the King case.

For some reflecting on the verdict, the issues that bubbled to the surface remain relevant.

Tim Kornegay, director of Livefree California, a crime intervention and advocacy coalition, recalled how the argument that Simpson — despite his wealth and the way he had distanced himself from Black causes — was railroaded by the LAPD resonated with "regular Black dudes on the street that have been dealing with this forever."

When the trial shifted from evidence of Simpson's guilt to the actions of the LAPD, Kornegay said, many people began to asking themselves: "How can you embrace this mountain of evidence from this group of people that historically have been doing all these types of things to Black people?"