The OJ Simpson case put domestic violence in the spotlight, fueling a movement

PHILADELPHIA — Thirty years ago, as women’s rights advocates worked to pass the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, domestic violence was still a hushed up topic.

Then Nicole Brown Simpson’s death thrust him into the spotlight. Americans fascinated by the murder investigation of superstar ex-husband OJ Simpson, who died Wednesday at age 76, have heard startling and heartbreaking details of the abuse she said she suffered at his hands.

“We must have 20 media trucks lined up on Hollywood Boulevard to talk to us,” said Patti Giggans, executive director of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Peace Over Violence, who said interest in the issue exploded overnight. .

“Because it was OJ — he’s famous, he’s an athlete, he’s handsome, everyone loved OJ — we started talking about what goes on in a hitter’s mind,” Giggans said. “We managed to maintain this conversation throughout this two-year period (of the case). I think it changed the movement.”

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-799-7233 in the US

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Given that victims – then and now – often hide their abuse, many people assumed that this only happened to poor or marginalized women. But then they realized that neither Nicole Simpson’s privilege nor her previous calls to the police had isolated her.

“She was beautiful, she was white, she was famous, she was rich. So there was a sense that if this could happen to her, it could happen to anyone,” said Rachel Louise Snyder, a professor at American University who explored the issue in her 2019 book, “No Visible Bruises.”

In an undated letter that emerged after her death, Nicole Simpson revealed that her NFL star-turned-celebrity husband gave her “disgusted” looks when she gained weight during her first pregnancy in 1988 and “gave her a beating.” the following year, although the couple told an X-ray laboratory that she had fallen from a bicycle.

In October 1993, a year after they divorced, she called 911 when Simpson showed up at her house “ranting and raving.”

“He’s in a white Bronco, but first of all he broke the back door to get in,” she said. “He’s OJ Simpson. I think you know his background.

Eight months later, she and her friend Ron Goldman – who had stopped by to return glasses left at a restaurant that night – were fatally stabbed outside their Brentwood home. Her two young children with Simpson were inside. She was 35, Goldman just 25.

“This was an absolutely watershed case,” said Snyder, who said the June 12, 1994, killings helped galvanize support for the Violence Against Women Act, which Congress passed that fall. “It stimulated a national dialogue, a national reckoning.”

Simpson was acquitted of the double murder in the following year’s sensational trial, but a different jury found him responsible for the deaths in a 1997 civil trial. Simpson was ordered to pay $33.5 million to the two families, money they tried to raise in they go.

In the years since, the Violence Against Women Act has funded more than $9 billion in grants to combat domestic violence, from police training to social services to the 1996 launch of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. The hotline received 75,000 calls that first year. Last year, it answered more than 400,000 calls, texts and chat messages.

Hotline officials, in a statement responding to Simpson’s death, said the numbers reflect “the growing need among survivors for compassionate, non-judgmental advocacy, as well as the pervasiveness of domestic violence in the U.S.”

Over time, advocates focused on warning signs that someone’s life could be in danger. Victims are most vulnerable when they try to get help or end the relationship, and about a year later. (The Simpsons’ divorce was finalized in late 1992.) Any attempt to strangle the victim, or put hands around her neck, could be a final escalation before the situation turns deadly. And the presence of a weapon greatly increases the risk of death.

However, understanding the cycle of violence is not always enough to stop it. When news of Simpson’s death broke Thursday, advocates near Philadelphia were reeling from the fatal stabbing of a 57-year-old woman. She filed charges and obtained a restraining order last month after her ex-husband allegedly assaulted and tried to strangle her. Police believe he kicked out a window air conditioner to break into her home Wednesday morning.

“This case for advocates is unbearable,” said Stacy Dougherty, deputy director of the local nonprofit Laurel House, which provides housing and services to victims in Montgomery County.

“When you have someone who does everything they’re supposed to do — they call the police, they get the order of protection, they change the lock, they ask for help, they do all these things. And it still happens.”

The housing crisis, she said, has made it even more difficult for victims to leave their abusers, as well as make the decision if they have children and fear sharing custody.

“There are so many barriers that victims of domestic violence encounter when they try to leave,” Dougherty said.

And yet, Giggans said, the Simpson case “gave us opportunities to teach about the cycle of violence, the dynamics of unhealthy relationships, what power and control mean.”

“And what women deserve,” she added.

She worries that cuts on the horizon, if federal funding dwindles, could hurt her group’s work, which includes not only direct services for victims and abusers but also school programs about healthy relationships.

“This came about in a big way around the time of orange juice, because college students, high school students — everyone admired orange juice, right?

“It was a stunning revelation that he was involved in this,” she said. “A lot of people didn’t want to believe he did it, even to this day.”