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From: Kate
T1:
Category 3: Category 1
Date: 12 Aug 1999
Time: 00:12:23
Remote Name: pm413.isomedia.com
THE O.J. TRIAL: THE TALE OF THE TAPES INFLAMMATORY STATEMENTS BY EX-COP MARK FUHRMAN THREATEN TO BRING THE SIMPSON CASE TUMBLING DOWN
As one of the first officers on the Bundy crime scene last June and the finder of the bloody glove, Fuhrman has all along been a key-and an embattled-witness. While the defense sent its investigators across the country to turn over every rock they could find in a search for dirt on Fuhrman, the prosecution had long known that the cop, who has a record of instability and previous racial incidents, could weaken their case. In January, when a reporter asked a key prosecutor if Fuhrman was going to be a problem, the lawyer flashed an expression of pain, then smiled and said, "No comment."
And Joseph Britton, an African American who was suing the city for use of excessive force by Fuhrman and other officers during an arrest following a 1987 robbery, received $100,000 from the city of Los Angeles to settle his case soon after it went to trial. According to Britton's lawyer Robert Deutsch, the city was eager to settle when it learned that the case, which could potentially have included an examination of Fuhrman's personnel records, was scheduled for trial during the Simpson proceedings in which Judge Ito had ruled those same records inadmissible. "There was clearly concern that the O.J. defense team might learn things from our trial that they couldn't get to otherwise," says Deutsch.
.............
If Fuhrman was in fact spinning some sort of fantasy, he was also weaving real names and police incidents into it. The L.A.P.D., whose reputation has long been bruised by allegations of racism, had barely recovered from the Rodney King beating case when the Simpson trial began. And now, after months of testimony in which the defense has tried to blame sloppy police work and evidence planting for the mountains of blood-soaked evidence against their client, it may have another tough fight ahead. According to Johnnie Cochran, "these tapes have nothing to do with any screenplay. He is talking about what he did on the job...some of which, quite frankly, is criminal conduct. This man is going to have to be indicted along the way."
For instance, according to transcripts obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Fuhrman talks about how, after some officers were shot in 1978, he and some other cops brutally beat four suspects. "We basically tortured them. We broke 'em," Fuhrman boasts. "Their faces were just mush. They had pictures of the walls with blood all the way to the ceiling and finger marks of [them]trying to crawl out of the room." Afterward, says Fuhrman, the officers were so bloody they cleaned themselves up with a garden hose.
According to the Times, this episode may match one that occurred in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles. But another officer present at the Boyle Heights incident, Sergeant Michael Middleton, now retired, has denied the story, saying, "There was no bloody room. I went in there."
--Reported by Elaine Lafferty and James Willwerth/Los Angeles and Lisa H. Towle/Raleigh
Copyright 1995 Time Inc. ELIZABETH GLEICK REPORTED BY ELAINE LAFFERTY AND JAMES WILLWERTH/LOS ANGELES AND LISA H. TOWLE/RALEIGH, THE O.J. TRIAL: THE TALE OF THE TAPES INFLAMMATORY STATEMENTS BY EX-COP MARK FUHRMAN THREATEN TO BRING THE SIMPSON CASE TUMBLING DOWN. , Time, 08-28-1995, pp 28+.