The Furor Will Be Here Awhile

Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman ripped the buttons off a newspaper photographer’s shirt a few days ago.

I understand the instinct.

Every day I work around photographers.

They can be annoying, temperamental and demanding human beings.

The same goes for editorial cartoonists, sports writers, and editors.

Some days I just want to grab their collars and yank.

Maybe that’s why journalists are fond of T-shirts. No buttons.

My urge to rip off buttons doesn’t end at the office.

At home I often encounter some good targets for a button-trimming: my kids.

When they are sassing me, bad-mouthing their mother, or have left their ice skates where my stubbed toe now resides, I think of buttons flying like small insects through the air.

Hasn’t everybody wanted to pop the buttons off somebody’s shirt at one time or another? That’s why some readers have called and asked why the paper even mentioned the fact that detective Fuhrman popped a few buttons of a photographer’s shirt.

Life has its frustrations, stresses, and strains so shouldn’t Mark Fuhrman get a break? Doesn’t he have some privacy? If his name had been Mark Smith or Mark Jones, popping somebody’s buttons in Spokane wouldn’t make news.

But this is Mark Fuhrman, lead detective in the investigation of the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Because of that, he has lost a significant part of his privacy for the moment.

He’s getting his 15 minutes of fame. He may not want it, he may resent it. But he’s getting it.

That’s why the photographer and the reporter met Fuhrman at the airport. He’s a guy in the news who shows up here on a house-hunting trip for his retirement years.

People are interested in this stuff. The plan initially was to give Fuhrman similar coverage as was given Patty Duke when she moved to Coeur d’Alene or Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf when he came to town to join the Washington Water Power Co. board.

Unlike Patty Duke or the general, however, Fuhrman made some news on his own.

By ripping the buttons off a photographer’s shirt he thrust himself back into the limelight of the O.J. Simpson trial.

Simpson’s attorneys have darkly suggested the button-popping incident shows a a character flaw in Fuhrman that bears on his conduct in the investigation of Nicole Simpson’s murder.

They are implying that Fuhrman’s choice of relocation to mostly white Idaho has some racial undercurrent.

Nothing Fuhrman said at the airport suggested these things.

Paul Quinnett, an anger-management counselor in Spokane, warns it would be a mistake to jump to a conclusion about Fuhrman’s character on the basis of the popped buttons incident.”I don’t think any single incident allows us to draw a conclusion on whether an individual has trouble managing anger,” Quinnett said.

So don’t rush to judgment about Mark Fuhrman. We aren’t down here.

Don’t rush to judgment about that lousy, blood-sucking press, either.

Fuhrman is a national figure in the middle of a once-in-a-century case where the defense has raised the suggestion that Fuhrman could be a rogue cop.

That’s the reality.

When Fuhrman lost it at the airport with a 28-year-old photographer he threw himself into the feeding frenzy of the national press.

I bet detective Fuhrman has kept his cool on the streets of LA in some very tough situations. If he had done the same in Spokane, there would be no uproar.

True, what happened in Spokane may have more to do with the fact that people in tough jobs often put on a kind of armor for their work, then take off that armor in their private time.

As Spokane County Sheriff John Goldman explained, “In law enforcement, you kind of psyche yourself up for the job. Once you step out of the job you assume a different, more relaxed role.”

Maybe Fuhrman thought he was on relaxed, private time in Spokane on a house-hunting trip.

He wasn’t. He can’t be. Until the Simpson trial is over, the detective will be on the job 24 hours a day.

As Goldman also notes, law enforcement officers receive intense training on how deal with difficult people who spit on them, curse at them, or threaten them. “And we are trained not to react,” the sheriff said.

The photographer didn’t spit, or curse, or threaten. He just took a picture.

Fuhrman reacted. That made news.

One day soon Mark Fuhrman and his family hope to get away from it all by moving to Sandpoint.

The folks who met them a few days ago speak highly of the Fuhrmans.

They likely will be fine neighbors.

Once resettled, Mark Fuhrman will regain his privacy.

He will be comforted as he gazes out across Lake Pend Oreille.

A peaceful time will come.

It cannot be here just yet.