Jury took a trip
By motorcading through town.
A crime scene visit.
2/12/95
This event was one of, if not the, most elaborately planned and surreal situations of the Simpson trial.
Here’s the description in Anatomy of a Trial of the lead up to and day of the jury’s crime-scene visit:
“The trip included quick stops at the apartment complex where Ronald Goldman had lived and Mezzaluna Restaurant, when he worked, then tours of the Bundy Drive condominium crime scene and Simpson’s Rockingham Avenue home two miles away.
“Ito oversaw the meticulous details of the trip, from police escorts and traffic blockades along the route to restriction of airspace to pool reporters’ cell phone use to unfurling curtain barricades and providing umbrellas and wide-brimmed hats at each stop to shield jurors from cameras.
“The entourage, which included police motorcycles, a bus with darkened windows for the jurors, and vans for court staff, the prosecution and defense teams, and the media, created almost as much of a spectacle as had Simpson’s slow-speed Bronco chase along the Los Angeles freeway system before his surrender and arrest nearly eight months earlier. Police blocked the Harbor and Santa Monica freeway ramps between downtown at the courthouse, where the session convened , and Brentwood fifteen miles to the west.
“The media rented rooms with street-facing windows and stationed equipment vehicles along the route. Screaming, sign-waving mobs lined the curbs, stood on rooftops, hung out of windows, crowded overpasses, and posed for photographs as the caravan passed in the background. Kids on roller blades and skateboards raced alongside on streets and behind the bizarre parade.”
And it was all professionally and well documented photographically by pool photojournalist Haywood Galbreath.
Anatomy of a Trial blog 