Prison officials in Nevada announced Friday that they have whisked O.J. Simpson away from other inmates who might want to harass him now that he has officially been granted parole.
Simpson has been moved to a new cell out of general population and into special housing, according to CNN.
“His parole could make him a target here. He just has two-and-a-half months to go, and we don’t want someone trying to make a name for themselves thinking, ‘I’m going to go punch O.J. Simpson in the face,’” said Brooke Keast, a spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Corrections.
She added: “We just don’t want anyone trying to make a name for themselves. We’ve been able to protect him for nine years.”
On Thursday a Nevada parole board decided that Simpson should be freed after serving nine years for a 2007 armed robbery, in which he was retrieving some stolen sports-memorabilia items that were supposed to be his.
The 70-year-old will reportedly be sad that he will not be with his regular homies in the yard.
“O.J. isn’t going to like this, because he loves being out there and talking to everybody,” said Tom Scotto, whom CNN identifies as a “close friend” who has visited Simpson in prison many times.
Read more at CNN.
DISCUSSION
bell hooks, in a series of videos for the Media Education Foundation, talked about being asked about the OJ trial and whether she, like many at the time, felt that because of his blackness, he was a target (and the implication being that she ought to support him due to sharing “racial traits”). She declined to answer (since people weren’t interested in the nuances at work and that OJ was known for beating his female partners) but said that what is getting lost in the whole matter is that violence against women is a serious and persistent issue that the American legal system refuses to address.