O.J. Wrestles Gunman After Golf

April 14, 1999 / 3:20 AM EDT / AP

O.J. Simpson wrestled and bit a gunman who tried to rob him Tuesday in the parking lot of a golf course, police said. Simpson was cut on the hand during the attack.

Simpson chased the assailant in his car while calling police on his cellular phone, but gave up because the man was running red lights and police told Simpson to pull over.

Nobody has been arrested, said Officer Jason Lee, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department.

Simpson, in a phone interview from home with The Associated Press, called the incident at Los Feliz Golf Course "the weirdest thing."

"I had finished playing golf and was walking to the car saying goodbye to my buddies," he said. "I was taking my shoes off between cars and I sensed someone coming up behind me. I turned around and he was holding a gun on me.

"I said, 'Man, why do you want to screw up your life? Take my car. You don't want to do this."'

He said the man looked at him and called him by his name, saying "O.J., I hear you carry a lot of money."

The assailant seemed intent on robbing him, Simpson said, but when he offered him money and his credit cards, he didn't take them.

"This guy looked like a regular solid citizen," he said. "In his 40s, very clean cut. I might have taken him for an off-duty policeman."

Simpson said he told him people would see him aiming the gun, but the man refused to leave.

"He stepped toward me and we wrestled for the gun. I bit his hand so he would let go of the gun," he said.

Simpson cut his hand with the barrel of the gun.

"My hand was bleeding and my first reaction wasn't to follow him, but I got in my van and followed him."

He said he got the license number, which he gave to police, then went to the police station.

Asked if he thought the incident was an attempted carjacking, he said, "He didn't want the car, he wanted me."

In 1994, Simpson was acquitted of murdering ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. However, he later was found liable for their deaths in a civil trial and was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages.