Police Misconduct

Police misconduct in the O.J. Simpson case was so pervasive that it's hard to know where to start.

When Detectives Phil Vannatter, Tom Lange, Ron Phillips and Mark Fuhrman were sent to Rockingham to notify O.J. of Nicole's death, their actions indicated that they were there to investigate him rather than to inform him. They invented reasons to enter his property without a warrant. Then Det. Vannatter signed a false affidavit to obtain a search warrant claiming that "O.J. Simpson left on an unexpected flight to Chicago during the early morning of of June 13, 1994..."

Four paragraphs in Vannatter's June 13 affidavit describe what happened when the detectives reached Bundy. He does not mention Kato's Nissan near the Ashford gate where the detectives were congregated and he mentions  nothing unusual about the Bronco that would draw their attention to it.  Instead, he mentions the blood near the door handle of the Bronco without mentioning how small it was. Thus, he gives the impression that the pinhead-sized blood stain was so prominent that it made them pay special attention to the Bronco. 

In Vannatter's second application for a search warrant on June 28 he corrects the false statement about O.J.'s "unexpected" flight to Chicago but adds a significant detail about the Bronco that would have given the detectives a legitimate reason to inspect it more closely. He says, "The vehicle was parked at an angle to the curb with the rear end jutting out into the roadway."

That was an exaggeration of such magnitude as to constitute a lie. That lie was the foundation for every subsequent action of the detectives that led to Fuhrman's "discovery" of the bloody glove, his partner Brad Robers' discovery of the blood trail leading into the Rockingham gate and their joint discovery of O.J.'s "bloody" socks.

Mark Fuhrman was the first detective on Rockingham to characterized the Bronco as being parked at a suspicious angle. He discovered the tiny blood drop near the door handle. He was the one who suggested an emergency situation that justified going over the wall. He was the one who actually climbed the wall and let the others in. He questioned Kato Kaelin, which led to his discovery of the bloody Rockingham glove. He said that he found a Swiss Army knife box with a missing knife. He also said that he and Roberts tracked down the origin of the piece of wood from a picket fence that was lying on the parkway near the front of the Bronco.

Brad Roberts was the first to discover blood on the inside of the Bronco right after Fuhrman returned from Bundy where Vannatter sent him to compare the gloves. Immediately after that Roberts showed Vannatter blood drops leading into the Rockingham gate that no one had seen before. This discovery is what prompted Vannatter to declare the Rockingham estate a crime scene.

Nowhere in either of Vannatter's applications for a search warrant is Fuhrman's name mentioned. This omission leaves the impression that other detectives or patrolmen may have found some of the incriminating evidence against O.J.

The only evidence found by anyone other than Fuhrman and Roberts was exculpatory. Vannatter noticed blood drops leading away from O.J.'s doorway and out of the Rockingham gate. That's what he put in his book Evidence Dismissed. That's not what he put in either of his affidavits to secure a search warrant.

While it is conceivable that Vannatter and Lange did not know about Fuhrman's special interest in O.J. and Nicole before the murders, Ron Phillips did tell them on the 13th that he had been to the Rockingham estate on a domestic dispute call. They had to know that they were dealing with a cop who bore watching. His partner Brad Roberts promptly demonstrated that he bore watching, too. 

Vannatter had to know that Roberts' blood trail didn't exist before Fuhrman introduced him to Roberts at Rockingham because of the real blood trail he found earlier. He had to at least wonder how Fuhrman and Roberts managed to be the first to discover every crucial bit of evidence on Rockingham. According to Evidence Dismissed,  Lange never did trust him.

Vannatter and Lange both knew that there was nothing odd about the way the Bronco was parked, yet Lange took credit for noticing it and Vannatter described it in his June 28 affidavit somewhat the way Fuhrman did in his July 5 appearance in the Preliminary Hearing. In that hearing Fuhrman made a big point of it. He also said, "The rear end was jutting out into the street..." but he didn't stop there :

The vehicle was carelessly, haphazardly
07 parked. It just didn't look right. It was -- looked
08 like it was quickly turned into the curb.
09 The rear end was jutting out into the street
10 several inches, if not maybe a foot farther than the
11 front. The right tires were turned into the curb.
12 There's no parallel parking here.
13 The person could drive right past his own
14 driveway to park the vehicle.

For the rear end to be "jutting out"  it had to have been out as far from the front as Fuhrman said it was. The photos said otherwise.

When Fuhrman presented a slew of evidence in Murder in Brentwood that he said the Robbery/Homicide detectives failed to follow up on Vannatter and Lange both called him a liar. But when he told similarly fantastic stories about the evidence that found its way into O.J.'s murder trial before he was busted on tape for lying they went along with him and even adopted some of his stories as their own. They didn't follow that law. They followed a rogue cop named Mark Fuhrman. --Jasper