Pandemonium

THE TRUTH

LOS ANGELES, 1995

Later, when the videotape played on every news channel in a seemingly continuous loop, it was easy enough to hear: a percussive sound like a cough, picked up by the microphones inside the courtroom. But no one watching the scene live on television, and no one inside the crowded chambers at the time, seemed to recognize it as a gunshot. In the minutes before the attack, the single television camera allowed in the courtroom was focused on the defendant’s table. O. J. Simpson—or Orenthal James Simpson, as the prosecution had repeatedly referred to him during the trial—stood impassively as Judge Ito issued his instructions. On the tape, many people are partially visible behind Simpson, including three California State police officers in brown uniforms, but it is Johnnie Cochran who is directly behind him. Cochran was not the architect of Simpson’s possession defense—that was Robert Shapiro—but it was Cochran who had successfully sold the jury on it. The blood, the glove, the black bag: the obviousness of it had made his case. Who else but a man possessed would leave so clear a trail?

When the court officer read the verdict for the first count—for the murder of “Nicole Simpson, a human being”—Cochran gripped Simpson’s shoulder and pressed his forehead into the taller man’s back. Simpson smiled in relief, and nodded. Murmurs rolled through the courtroom. Then the second verdict was read for the murder of Ronald Goldman. It was at that moment that Marc Janusek, a building janitor for over fifteen years, shot Officer Steve Mercer as he stood guard outside the courtroom. A few seconds later, out of sight of the camera, the door to the courtroom was pushed open. Cochran looked over Simpson’s shoulder at the movement, but at that moment Simpson was lifting his hand and waving to the jury. He mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

The first clue to the television audience that something was amiss was when one of the police officers, Dan Fiore, ran toward the defendant’s table. He grabbed Robert Shapiro by the shoulders and shouted, “Get down! Get down!”

Janusek, the janitor, moved into the frame, his back to the camera. He was dressed in a black trench coat and a wide-brimmed fedora, and was carrying two silver pistols, though only one is visible on the tape. The next gunshots, however, were from Officer Tanya Brandt. Brandt, an AfricanAmerican and the only female officer providing security inside the courtroom, fired her service revolver twice into the possessed man’s back. Janusek turned quickly, the trench coat fanning around him. He raised his arm, and fired once. Officer Brandt fell to the ground, out of the camera’s sight. Troopers converged from all corners of the courtroom. One officer tried to tackle the possessed man, but was immediately thrown off. Another officer fired at nearly point-blank range, but Janusek was spinning, and only later was it determined that the shot had missed. The bullet tore through Janusek’s coat and struck the wall only inches from where prosecution lawyer Christopher Darden was standing. Janusek, however, abruptly stopped moving, and three officers immediately threw themselves onto him, smashing him to the ground.

The following moments were chaotic, but a rough order of events was reconstructed from the tape and from later interviews. Every person in the courtroom, with the exception of the three troopers restraining the possessed man on the floor, was trying to exit by any means