By Abigail Goldman

With all but one beastly exception, Sept. 13 was like any other day for Metro Police. Officers encountered the everyday outlaw: the car thief, the robber, the burglar, the drug dealer, the bad driver and the lot. The predictable criminal parade.

Then there came O.J.

O.J. Simpson spun Sept. 13 and the days following into a circus. The former football star, now facing multiple charges in an armed robbery at Palace Station that Thursday evening, brought a tidal wave of TV camera crews into Las Vegas, each fighting for a shot at the city and its latest celebrity outlaw.

Only what O.J. did - or didn’t do, or didn’t mean to do, or if he did it, this is how he would have done it - was just a sliver of Sept. 13.

In fact, Metro responded to reports of 17 robberies that day. Not to mention 52 burglaries, 53 assaults and 60 stolen cars. Officers arrested more than 150 people, in crimes dazzling (trafficking in methamphetamine, arson, vehicular manslaughter, living off the earnings of a prostitute) and dull (littering, driving without a licence, speeding.)

In the hours leading up to the O.J. incident, police arrested a man for allegedly pushing a bike around a busy intersection wearing only a tank top. They responded to a woman who took her car to an auto body shop for some repair work and reported being sexually assaulted by the guy who changed her tires. They arrested two men who allegedly teamed up to rob a senior citizen who just so happened to be carrying a briefcase containing $4,986.65.

Metro Police, as on every other day, got hundreds of calls for help. One of them was about O.J.

Abigail Goldman can be reached at 259-8806 or at abigail.goldman@lasvegassun.com.