The video below shows an extraordinary car chase in east Los Angeles. The gunman ultimately carjacks another car and leaves a path of destruction in his path after police tried to stop him on suspected car theft. He is now looking at a long list of crimes that will make the original car theft look trivial in comparison. Police shot the man as he tried to carjack another vehicle.
The car chase began around 5 p.m. and then unfolded on various highways and side streets. The use of lethal force in this circumstance will likely be viewed as facially justified based on (1) the fact that the suspect was armed, (2) he had threatened various citizens in the course of felonies, (3) he had endangered people in his reckless driving, and (4) was in the process of threatening citizens with yet another carjacking.
Karen
Pulling choker is lingo for the low job on the totem pole in the logging business a long time ago. I don’t know if they still have these positions. The ‘faller’ would drop the tree and then strip the branches and buck it into truck sized lengths, sometimes right there or later after it had been pulled out. The choker would scramble over everything to wrap a ‘choker chain’ around the log and attach it to a cable that was pulled by a winch attached to a spar-a tall tree left standing or a steel pole placed there for that purpose. Then the log was pulled to a point where it could be dealt with. When I did it the guy at the winch and others got bonuses on top of salaries. The more logs the more money. Often the winch operator would pull the log before the choker man was clear. I went for a tumble a few times before I learned how to time stuff. You get well clear before giving the go ahead sign. I worked for a few weeks and then decided that planting trees was much safer. On the tree planting crews were several ex loggers whose bodies didn’t work well enough from accidents, to jump around logs all day.
Paul
Of course the guy would say the gloves didn’t shrink. Means nothing.
I apologize for unleashing the OJ was framed conspiracy theorists. Maybe I can distract. Moon landing, real or fake??? Ted Williams head, frozen or thawed? JFK, dead or living w/ Marilyn Monroe on a remote island?
And whoever retrieved my comments – thank you!
But there is no evidence that he did frame OJ. We have a mass spec assay that shows the blood did not have levels of preservative in it consistent with a lab sample.
It’s certainly problematic if the FBI lab had a history of misconduct, and can indeed cast doubt on anything it touched. But a negative test result, and a problematic lab, does not translate to a positive test result.
The worst that might have happened is that all evidence it handled got thrown out, and then he would have walked, anyway.
But I have not seen any evidence that he was innocent.
Rather, the system worked in his favor, and he got away for a while. It was hard to accept, but I had to, because that’s the justice system. The prosecution made so many mistakes (spoken from my cherished position as Captain Hindsight.)
I included a DOJ article about Whitehorse’s allegations against Dr Matz, specifically. In that case, they were warrantless. But it sounds like the FBI lab needed to clean up its act.
Of course OJ was innocent. How else did Goldman and Nicole’s blood get on the glove and socks found at his Estate or in his car? How did his blood get at the crime scene. Its quite obvious that the entire LA PD was trying to frame him because they hate Black football players/movie stars.
How can anyone argue with “If it doesn’t fit – you must acquit”?
rcocean – after you watch the examination and cross-examination of Mark Fuhrman you have no question that Fuhrman would have framed him.
Here is the link again:
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/26/us/fbi-disputes-simpson-defense-on-tainted-blood.html
The defense assertion that the blood was planted by police using EDTA preserved blood was based on a misunderstanding of Dr Matz’ assays. He actually provide the blood did NOT come from the lab.
The blood had chemicals that shared some characteristics with EDTA, but were not at the concentrations, and lacked some of the ions, of EDTA. It was likely dietary or environmental in origin.
If we tested our own blood with mass spec, it is surprising how many chemicals pop up.
Here is Dr Matz’s explanation of the profile of the blood. The defense based their argument that there was EDTA in the blood samples based on a misunderstanding of Dr Matz’s assays.
However, it merely detected chemicals which shared a few ions with EDTA. The level of concentration and ion profile was not consistent with blood preservatives in a crime lab sample, but rather was likely from a dietary or environmental source.
Actually, Dr Matz’s assays proved that the blood did NOT come from the crime lab. Again, the prosecution failed to convey that information adequately to a jury who did not understand.
If we tested our own blood, there are a lot of chemicals that would pop up on a mass spec.
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/26/us/fbi-disputes-simpson-defense-on-tainted-blood.html
Karen – much as I hate Wikipedia, here is a quote from their article
The history of the FBI Lab hasn’t been without controversy. Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, who joined the FBI in 1982 and served as a Supervisory Special Agent at the Lab from 1986 to 1998, blew the whistle on scientific misconduct at the Lab. In a subsequent investigation, it was found that evidence had been falsified, altered, or suppressed, or that FBI agents had testified falsely, in as many as 10,000 cases, resulting in many false convictions. More than a decade later, cases were still being overturned because of this massive fraud.[3] As a result of Whitehurst’s whistleblowing, the FBI Lab implemented forty major reforms, including undergoing an accreditation process.
Paul – I see you followed the OJ debacle closely. Me too. It was horrible all around. I agree with you on many things, but on this we disagree.
Here is an analysis of Matz’s testimony that no EDTA was found in the samples using liquid chromatography and mass spec. Unfortunately, he was not well prepared on the stand, and came across as arrogant. Another mistake by the prosecution.
One of the complaints that Nicole Simpson had during her frequent 911 calls was that the police were too friendly with OJ.
http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/9704a/07simpso.htm
Isaac – what is “choker logging?”
Here’s more on the gloves:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/09/oj-simpson-ex-prosecutor-claims-bloody-glove-tampered.html
I wonder if the manufacturer had ever:
A) tested their gloves with blood
B) compared the evidence glove with a new glove, for size, and had OJ try on the new glove.
The former VP of Isotonic tried on the glove himself in court, and indicated it had shrunk from XL to Large, plus, the liner had been ripped.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/law/12/11/court.archive.simpson6/
The gloves were a terrible prosecutorial mistake, among many.
Why do we have so many car chases here in CA? It’s a type of screen spectator sport. And it is so dangerous to the innocent drivers.
But, being CA, there are always movements to prevent police from following car chases, blaming the police for the suspect’s actions.
Paul – I had the opportunity to speak with Fred Goldman several times during and after the OJ case. A lot of evidence was not allowed in court. The family was very frustrated.
I believe he got off because the prosecution made a fatal error in not realizing the gloves were stiff or that he would resist putting them on to the best of his ability. Judge Ito kept pandering to the cameras and disallowed evidence he should have allowed. Plus, he wrote a book entitled “If I Did It.” I don’t think they should allow cameras in high profile cases, just reporters. It creates too much of a circus.
Also, even leather of high quality will shrink and dry if it gets wet. We have to apply oils and leather cleaner on high quality leather to avoid cracking. My own lined, expensive show gloves come out of storage in hard balls if I forget to clean them before putting them away. The horse and human sweat soaks the leather, which makes it stiff. I had to work them on my hands, a bit at a time, and work oil painstakingly into them.
These gloves were in his size, and were the exact same style and size of gloves he had purchased previously. It seems unusual that the same size, same manufacturer would suddenly not fit him. Plus, in addition to the blood/sweat stiffening the gloves, he’s going to do his best to make it look like they don’t fit. And depending on what type of glove he used, they can be rough for grip, which would make it harder to put gloves on over them.
I’ve double gloved before and it’s a pain if you’re using purple nitrile, or anything with grip.
He slipped through the legal system, but his character was his fate, and he ended up in jail anyway.
Karen S. – the defense had a lot of stuff they didn’t use as well, including the fact that the blood on the socks in the bedroom had preservative in it, it had been planted after the fact.
Paul
I remember quite clearly watching OJ trying to put on crinkly twisted gloves wearing surgical gloves on his crinkly twisted fingers. The only thing more pathetic than his miserable face contorting in ‘gosh these gloves just don’t fit expression’ was the prosecution. He was rich and coupled with a lot of ‘payback’, he got off. The gloves did not slide on as new, leather shrinks and deforms, surgical gloves don’t slide on the outside-they’re made to grip, and if his hands were that twisted what’s he doing playing so much golf, driving his SUV, counting his money? Regardless of what he paid, the gloves were soaked in blood, dried out, twisted and the whole routine was funnier than the bra over the sweater routine on Seinfeld if it weren’t so tragic.
issac – do you remember the owner of the glove company getting back on the stand and saying that the gloves do not shrink. When you pay that kind of money for gloves and they get wet, they are not supposed to shrink. The prosecution twisted themselves in a knot trying to get the guy to say the glove shrank but couldn’t get him there. He stood behind his product.
It is too bad that the crook survived this chase. Now for those who do not think that the police can err in shooting suspects, this is one where there can be no question that the cops were right in shooting the SOB. Too bad they did not use more rounds, but then there may have been too many innocents in the background.
Paul
Leather shrinks and/or hardens up, regardless of who fashions it into a glove. Having experienced this with leather gloves ranging in price and quality from kids gloves to ‘going out on a date’ gloves, I have tossed a few pair. The only leather product I have ever known not to shrink or get distorted when it got soaked was the corked boots I wore one Spring when I worked pulling choker logging. The boots were soaked from the outside in pine tar every weekend. The pine tar resisted snow melting on the boots for the week. Monday morning when you got on the ‘Crummy’, the smell was overwhelming. I doubt OJ used pine tar on his gloves.
issac – when you pay what you do for the gloves that OJ had, they do not shrink. 😉
For a moment, I thought I saw Bruce Jenner being chased by the paparazzi. Cell phone records will clear things up.
Isaac, Your analysis is spot on. The case was won w/ the jury selection. These attorneys hired a high priced juror analyst. She helped them pick a jury dumber than a box of rocks. Dumb jurors buy the cartoonish antics of a Johnny Cochrane. But, we are hopefully not going to go into a who OJ thread!
Paul
Criminals go free all the time due to the incompetence of the prosecution or the money they have, or both. OJ had the most expensive lawyers available. The prosecution allowed the issue to hinge on the glove fitting OJ’s hand. The glove was shrunken from having been soaked in blood and then dried-ever try to get a pair of leather gloves on after they have dried out? OJ was wearing a surgical glove. OJ was doing the arthritic distorted fingers bit-as if he had never been able to put a glove on. The jury, stupid to a fault, heard only, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Set to a popular rap song.
The same with Zimmerman and Rick Scott, stupid Angela Corey and hundreds of millions of dollars bilked from taxpayers.
issac and nick – the OJ case was over when they destroyed Mark Fuhrman. The glove was frosting on the cake. And the glove manufacturer said the gloves don’t shrink.
BTW, the LA DA ran it in Scottsdale as a test case where they won the case. There is a company in Scottsdale, AZ where you can mock trial your cases and the DA thought they had a shoo-in. They sent their A team.
There used to be folks here who thought OJ did not commit the murders. Maybe still are?
Nick – after following the OJ trial on TV, I was surprised the jury took as long as it did to come down with a verdict of Not Guilty. The State did not make their case. I don’t know if OJ did it or not, but I do know the State could not prove that he did it.
It’s funny. There are thousands of videotaped car chases, but the most famous was the low speed, no crash, no shootout, OJ car chase. And, AC Cowlings was driving, OJ was in back of the white, Ford Bronco, crying like a little girl. I pointed out to friends we were on “The 5” [Interstate 5], the route of that famous chase, on Sunday headed toward Santa Anita. Of course, OJ was headed south on the 5, toward Tijuana, searching for the real killer.
Once he gets his license back he should look for work as a stunt driver. Some of the driving was really very good. 🙂 When he got out of the car it appeared that he was barefoot or had no shoes on, he seemed ‘tenderfooted’ so to speak. Did anyone else notice that?