Delco man faces charges after fight in West Chester

Police say dispute involving man named Simpson was about O.J.

WEST CHESTER » Maybe it was the similarity in their surnames. Maybe it was the lingering impact of the national debate on race, class, criminal justice, and alleged police misconduct. Or maybe it was just a little too much alcohol after a night out in the borough.

Whatever the motive, a Media man now finds himself facing criminal charges surrounding an allegation that he punched another man during a street corner dispute involving the O.J. Simpson brouhaha.

Kalvin Demetriu Simpson, 22, was charged with one count of simple assault following the incident witnessed by West Chester police in the early morning hours of Saturday, July 22. A preliminary hearing in Magisterial District Judge Marian Thayer Vito’s court in West Chester is set for Aug. 18. Simpson remains free pending a summons.

According to a criminal complaint filed in the case by Detective Robert Kuehn, Simpson is the man he saw throwing a punch at a man during a dispute between two groups at the intersection of South High and East Miner streets.

The dispute, Kuehn stated in his affidavit, concerned former football and movie star O.J. Simpson.

On July 20, two days before the incident, O.J. Simpson was granted parole by a Nevada state board overseeing paroles after more than eight years in prison for a Las Vegas hotel heist, successfully making his case in a nationally televised hearing that reflected America’s enduring fascination with the former football star.

With the ruling, the 70-yearold Simpson, who was convicted in 2008 of an armed robbery involving two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room, could be out of prison as early as Oct. 1 after serving the minimum nine years of a 33-year sentence.

According to published reports, when the final vote to grant parole was read after parole commissioners deliberated just over 30 minutes, Simpson lowered his head and then raised it up with a big smile. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” an emotional Simpson said while his sister, Shirley Baker, wept and hugged Arnelle Simpson, his daughter.

O.J. Simpson had been acquitted in the sensational murder trial involving the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. That trial seemed to split the nation along racial lines and was recently revisited in a documentary and a made for television film.

According to Kuehn, he was on patrol about 2:30 a.m. July 22 when he approached the intersection and saw and heard two groups having a verbal dispute “over something to do with O.J. Simpson.” Two two were on opposite sides of East Miner Street. Kuehn drove past them, then circled back to see if the dispute continued. As he approached the intersection, he saw a black male later identified as Simpson throw a punch and hit a white male, who fell to the ground.

When Kuehn pulled his patrol car up, two men, including the person who he saw throw the punch, ran from the scene. Both were stopped a few blocks away by other officers. When Kuehn attended to the punch victim, he was bleeding from his nose and had a lump of his forehead, although he refused medical treatment. He told Kuehn he had been walking with some friends and had been struck by someone, but did not know why.

Another man who was with the victim told Kuehn he was having a verbal dispute with the other group of men over O.J. Simpson and that during the dispute his friend had been struck by a man who fled the scene.

When Simpson was stopped in the 100 bock of North Darlington Street, Kuehn was able to identify him as the person who had thrown the punch. Simpson was taken to the borough police station, where he gave a statement.

In it, he said that he was in town that night with friends and had left a bar to walk to a friend’s home to spend the night. Walking on South High Street, he and his friends passed another group and got into a verbal dispute. He said as they walked away, someone shouted a racial epithet at them, and that one of his friends was pushed. He said he then threw the punch at the other man, hitting him in the chest. He told the detective he had consumed four mixed drinks and two beers at the bar.

He was processed and released.

Kalvin Simpson