Fellow Officers Don't Share Racist Image Of Fuhrman

MARK FUHRMAN remains in the news as federal agents probing civil-rights violations have subpoenaed Los Angeles Police Department documents based on testimony during the O.J. Simpson trial showing Fuhrman had bragged of beating defendants. Here's another look at the man. -----------------------------------------------------------------

LOS ANGELES - The name Mark Fuhrman has become synonymous with the worst of law enforcement. A cop whose own words branded him a racist and led some to believe he framed O.J. Simpson. A cop whose own chief called him a disgrace.

But what about the Los Angeles Police Department officers, sergeants and detectives who worked with former Detective Fuhrman? What are we to make of the fact they considered him a good officer, at least when they knew him?

"The person that the world knows . . . on the tape . . . is racist, who made terrible remarks, who probably represents all the filth the world has to offer. The Mark Fuhrman I know . . . is not that. He is not a racist," said Sgt. Roberto Alaniz, a Latino whom Fuhrman sought out as a partner in 1984.

Added Sgt. Ed Palmer, a black officer who first met Fuhrman at West Los Angeles station last year: "I am as shocked as anybody . . . If Mark were a racist and especially as big a racist as he sounded on the tapes, I would have no trouble telling him he was the scum of the earth. But I really can't."

And this from Carlton Brown, a black homicide detective who was Fuhrman's partner for most of 1993: "I really can't say whether Fuhrman was racist . . . but if he harbored those feelings, it was not evident to me."

Recent interviews with more than a half-dozen police officers, all but one of them black or Latino, do not prove Fuhrman did not commit the brutalities he bragged about on a series of taped interviews with an aspiring screenwriter between 1985 to 1994. Nor do they prove he did not mask racist views while sharing a patrol car, meals, even an apartment, with the officers who worked with him, trained him and even were partners with him.

But the portrait that emerges is clearly at odds with the Mark Fuhrman whose conduct and comments have sparked investigations of the LAPD - including a new probe by the U.S. Justice Department. Instead of the rogue, racist cop depicted in the Simpson trial, interviews suggest Fuhrman was aggressive, even arrogant, but if he harbored the vile views expressed to others, he concealed them from co-workers.

True, the portrait offered by officers in recent interviews is largely anecdotal. Maybe, some say, he never shared his true feelings with them.

Or maybe, they suggest, he changed after he underwent psychological counseling in the mid-1980s.

But their view of Fuhrman, the officers insisted, was not based on naivete.

Nor, the officers said, do their comments reflect any tacit acceptance of the LAPD meting out street justice. "If he were that way, and as much a racist as the tapes indicated, then it would have come out somewhere, and somebody would have spoken up," said Palmer. "That code of silence nonsense, you get to that point, somebody would have spoken up."

Especially, the minority officers said, if Fuhrman's wrath was directed at one of their own. "We are trained as police officers to uphold law and order," said Brown. "I also have an obligation to my race as an individual (and) . . . I would not have stood by for anyone crossing over the line of any race."

Of course, there are plenty inside and outside the department who will tell you the recollections of Fuhrman's former partners say less about him than they do about the willingness of any officers to publicly criticize one of their own.

"I think it is a fallacy to say that just because someone didn't say something around you, that you are not able to discern the person (Fuhrman) has a problem with race," said Detective Leonard Ross, president of the Oscar Joel Bryant Foundation, an association of black LAPD officers.

"You mean in 20 years, he never said any of those things to anybody else? Impossible," Ross said.

In Ross' view, it is not surprising that none of the officers interviewed could recall an instance where Fuhrman used racial epithets or excessive force. To the contrary, he said, it would have made no sense for the former detective to do so in front of officers who did not share his views. "It's no secret, you just pick and choose when you do it," Ross said of misconduct. "He (Fuhrman) was not a fool, nobody said he was a fool."

But if officers with something critical to say about Fuhrman are unwilling to come forward, those who agreed to interviews - and insist they are not apologists - offer a different depiction.

"I never saw him be discourteous to any person and certainly not because of their race," said Sgt. Paul Partridge, who has known Fuhrman since the two were LAPD rookies 20 years ago. "If he were back on the job (today), he would risk his life for anyone on the job or anyone in this city, just like he always had. And he wouldn't care who they were."

While he never saw Fuhrman exhibit racist actions or language, Partridge said, he does remember the former detective as so self-assured that his confidence often spilled over into cockiness. When that occurred, Partridge said, Fuhrman's arrogance could be offensive.