THE SIMPSON MURDER CASE : THE TIMES POLL : Half Say They Are Sympathetic Toward Simpson : Blacks are nearly twice as likely as whites to hold that opinion. Overall, many respondents are critical of Garcetti and media coverage of the case.

Public opinion in Los Angeles is divided regarding NFL Hall of Fame football player O.J. Simpson, with roughly half the respondents in a Los Angeles Times poll saying they are sympathetic toward the man accused of killing his ex-wife and her friend.

Opinions are also split by race, with African Americans almost twice as likely as whites to sympathize with the black sports star. Seventy-four percent of the African American respondents said they were either “very” or “somewhat” sympathetic toward Simpson, compared to 38% of whites and 50% of Latinos.

The racial division also showed up in a question regarding the handling of the case by Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti. Sixty-three percent of African Americans polled said Garcetti, who has appeared frequently on television shows to talk about the case, has behaved irresponsibly while 37% of whites said that. Overall, 43% of respondents said Garcetti behaved responsibly, and 40% said he behaved irresponsibly.

The drama, which for the past two weeks has received nearly nonstop television coverage and has dominated many newspapers, continues to have a rapt audience. About four in five poll respondents said they have followed the story closely.

On the whole, however, those polled have not been impressed with the coverage. In fact, 67% of respondents believe the media have been irresponsible, a complaint that has been echoed in critiques published on opinion pages and broadcast on public affairs and news programs.

The random telephone poll of 1,023 adults was conducted Saturday and Sunday and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The bloodied bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman were discovered early June 13 outside her Brentwood townhouse.

One particularly controversial element of the news coverage has been the release and broadcast of a taped 911 call made in 1989 by a panicked Nicole Simpson to report that her husband had broken into her home.

“I don’t think the 911 tape should have been revealed,” said 21-year-old Keyaltayna Johnson, who, in an answer to the poll, said she felt sympathy for Simpson. “It had nothing to do with what happened. That was in the past.”

Overall, the poll found 48% of city residents were sympathetic to Simpson and 41% were not. More women (52%) were sympathetic than men (43%).

The degree of sympathy for Simpson in Los Angeles is similar to what was found in a national poll conducted by CNN and the Gallup Poll on June 22.

Lois Heaney, an expert in jury selection with the National Jury Project/West in Oakland, said the apparent high degree of sympathy for a man who was a fixture of popular culture for more than two decades means that many people are still withholding judgment.

Respondent Paul Olkin, a 41-year-old Rancho Park respiratory therapist, said he is ambivalent about Simpson.

“I’m not condemning him, but I’m not saying he is innocent either,” Olkin said. “I’d like to know.”

He said he remains angry about how police handled the events of June 17, when Simpson was found driving on an Orange County freeway and allowed to return home. “They let him take this merry little car ride, where, had it been anyone else . . . they certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to go into the house, go to the bathroom and have something to drink” before being taken into custody.

Olkin was among 38% of those polled who said Simpson had been treated too leniently by police. Overall, 49% said Simpson had been treated as deserved.

Only 23% of the African Americans polled said Simpson had been treated too leniently while 43% of the whites felt that way.

Times assistant poll director Susan Pinkus contributed to this article.