I don’t know if it was racial animosity or animosity directed towards the police. A few years after the O.J. case it came out that the L.A.P.D. planted or falsified evidence in 100s of cases. I have to believe that this practice was pretty common knowledge in the black community. A key piece of evidence was the bloody glove found by Furhman (?). Would thinking that the evidence was planted (I’m not saying it was) unreasonable on the part of the jury?
While I am sure that O.J. was guilty of the crime, my outrage at the jury was diminished a great deal after the news of the crookedness of the L.A.P.D. came out. I grew up in the L.A. area and my view of the L.A.P.D. was formed by Sheriff John and Jack Webb—clean and upright. Times change.
I do not doubt this is true, but wrongdoing on the part of police in other cases is not balanced by letting a murderer get away with killing someone.
I have to believe that this practice was pretty common knowledge in the black community.
I have had a lot of contact with the lower classes of the black community, and the assertion that the police are racist and picking on them is a bedrock foundation of their belief system. It is simply accepted as a given in their community.
A key piece of evidence was the bloody glove found by Furhman (?). Would thinking that the evidence was planted (I’m not saying it was) unreasonable on the part of the jury?
Yes, because they would have to assume a series of improbabilities were all true; That Furman instantly made up his mind to frame OJ, tucked the bloody glove into his suit somehow, and then rushed to OJ's house to plant it without explicitly knowing OJ's whereabouts, and therefore not knowing whether or not OJ had an iron tight alibi, and thereby leaving himself open to possible charges of planting evidence.
It wasn't just the glove, it was the totality of all the evidence that indicated OJ's guilt.
While I am sure that O.J. was guilty of the crime, my outrage at the jury was diminished a great deal after the news of the crookedness of the L.A.P.D. came out. I grew up in the L.A. area and my view of the L.A.P.D. was formed by Sheriff John and Jack Webb—clean and upright.
People who have never been on the wrong side of the law generally have no idea about the seedy side of law enforcement. I have personally had a lot of social experience with criminally minded people, and I have had a lot of social experience with cops, and I'm here to tell you, the cops never were "boy scouts."
A larger than most people would believe portion of them are criminally inclined themselves, and they do not poses the ethics or morals that we expect cops to have.