Mark Fuhrman
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Mark Fuhrman (born February 5, 1952) was a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) who found the bloody glove that linked O.J. Simpson to the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson.
In 1970, Fuhrman enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of 18. He was honorably discharged in 1975 after attaining the rank of sergeant. He later joined the LAPD as a police officer, eventually becoming a police detective. He served on the force for 20 years, earning over 55 commendations before retiring.
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[edit] Role in O.J. Simpson murder trial
Fuhrman was the officer who found both gloves (one at the murder scene, the other at Simpson's home), much of the blood drops at Simpson's home, and who entered Simpson's estate without a search warrant due to exigent circumstances.
During the trial, Fuhrman denied ever using the word "nigger" for the previous ten years, yet the defense was able to find an audiotape contradicting that testimony. Fuhrman gave a taped interview in 1985 to Laura McKinney, an aspiring screenwriter working on a screenplay about female police officers. Fuhrman bragged about his membership in the secret organization within the LAPD known as MAW (Men Against Women).[1] In further interviews, Fuhrman bragged about beating and torturing gang members, and was quoted as saying "Yeah we work with niggers and gangs. You can take one of these niggers, drag 'em into the alley and beat the shit out of them and kick them. You can see them twitch. It really relieves your tension."[2] He went on to say "we had them begging that they'd never be gang members again, begging us". Fuhrman's racism toward African-Americans was also evident in the taped interview. He said that he would tell Blacks, "You do what you're told, understand, nigger?"."[3] Only very limited excerpts of the tapes were admitted as evidence in the 1995 murder trial against O.J. Simpson, yet the admitted portions were strong enough to cast doubts on Fuhrman's motives and credibility.
As a result, the prosecution labeled their main police witness as a "bad cop." With the jury absent on September 6, 1995, Fuhrman was asked questions as to whether or not he had ever falsified police reports or if he had planted or manufactured evidence in the Simpson case and he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Fuhrman later pled no contest to a perjury charge and was sentenced to probation and fined $200.
During the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson, the defense accused Fuhrman of being a racist and planting evidence. Anthony Pellicano, a private investigator for Fuhrman, stated in the Washington Post (August 22, 1995), "Fuhrman's life is in the toilet. He has no job, no future. People think he's a racist. His life is ruined. And for what? Because he found a key piece of evidence."
[edit] Post-Trial
After the trial, Fuhrman retired from the LAPD and moved to Sandpoint, Idaho and wrote a book about the Simpson case, called Murder in Brentwood. For his next book, Murder in Greenwich, he investigated the then-unsolved 1975 murder of Martha Moxley and presented his theory that the murderer was Michael Skakel, nephew of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Senator Robert Kennedy. Skakel was convicted for the murder in June 2002. The book was made into a TV movie in 2002, starring Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Oz) as Fuhrman.
In May 1998, Mark Fuhrman was given a polygraph test on the Fox Network show Lie Detector. The test's administrator claimed the results indicated that Fuhrman did not plant the bloody glove and that he was not aware of the bloody glove before entering Simpson's property.
More recently, Fuhrman has written books on the controversial subjects of capital punishment and the medical treatment and death of Terri Schiavo.
Most recently, he has written a book on the John F. Kennedy assassination. In it he advances a theory debunking the Single Bullet Theory while still maintaining that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. He claims that the Warren Commission was forced to adopt the Single Bullet Theory for political reasons. However, he says that a dent in the presidential limousine used that day in the chrome above the windshield vindicates the story told by John Connally that a first shot at President John Kennedy did not hit him.
Fuhrman is a frequent guest of conservative commentator Sean Hannity and a contributor for FOX News. He is also the host of the popular Spokane, WA radio show "The Mark Fuhrman Show" on AM radio station 1510 KGA between the hours of 8am-11am Pacific. The show covers local and national topics and includes many guest callers and listeners.
In response to the proposed book If I Did It written by O.J. Simpson to be published by ReganBooks (an imprint of HarperCollins), Fuhrman stated that he would drop HarperCollins as publisher of his own books in the future. However, Simpson's book has since been cancelled.
[edit] Books
- Murder in Brentwood (February 1, 1997), ISBN 0-89526-421-8
- Murder in Greenwich: Who Killed Martha Moxley? (June 1, 1998), ISBN 0-06-019141-4
- Murder in Spokane: Catching a Serial Killer (May 22, 2001), ISBN 0-06-019437-5
- Death and Justice: An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine (September 2, 2003), ISBN 0-06-000917-9
- Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death (July 1, 2005), ISBN 0-06-085337-9
- A Simple Act of Murder: November 22, 1963 (May 2, 2006), ISBN 0-06-072154-5
[edit] References in Media
In an episode of Chappelle's Show, in the skit called "Jury Selection", Dave Chappelle comments that Fuhrman's last name sounds racist. He connects it to the words Führer and German, to compare his last name to Hitler. In the South Park episode With Apologies to Jesse Jackson, Fuhrman is known as a "Nigger Guy" - a caucasian who has said the word "nigger" in the public eye. Randy Marsh and Michael Richards also bear the distinction. In the episode "A Hit is a Hit" of "The Sopranos", Cristopher waiting in a cue for a meal with Adriana, surrounded by African-Americans said:"What am I, Mark Fuhrman over here"?
[edit] See also
| Key figures | Prosecution figures | Defense figures | Witnesses | Other elements |
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