Fuhrman’s Boasts Of Brutality ‘Simply Not True’ He ‘Acted Out His Prejudices,’ But He Exaggerated His Misconduct, Police Say

After an exhaustive review, the Los Angeles Police Department said Monday that Mark Fuhrman had grossly exaggerated most, if not all, of his accounts of his racist brutality as a patrol officer but had been allowed to “act out his prejudices,” especially against female officers at work.

Fuhrman is the former detective whose perjured testimony about his use of racial slurs gravely undermined the prosecution in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

The report on him was commissioned nearly two years ago after Laura Hart McKinny, an aspiring screenwriter, produced tapes from the mid-1980s in which Fuhrman repeatedly used a racial slur against blacks and bragged about his brutal exploits as a police officer.

The tapes not only shattered Fuhrman’s reliability as a witness in the Simpson case (he earlier had denied using the racial slur) but also shook public confidence in the Police Department.

In interviews with McKinny, Fuhrman repeatedly said he and others had beaten, kicked and even fatally brutalized suspects.

Though investigators reviewed thousands of pages of files and re-interviewed dozens of participants in decade-old cases, their report did not fix specific responsibility or fault individuals. It made only general recommendations, which led some women, minority members and other critics of the department to say the report is inadequate.

However, Police Chief Willie L. Williams said Monday as he released the report, “This report clearly shows that the statements Mark Fuhrman made regarding systematic misconduct are simply not true.”

Of 29 incidents or “issues” on McKinny’s tapes, 17 could not be connected to any known events in the careers of Fuhrman or his contemporaries. Investigators did link 12 accounts to known events, but they produced no conclusive findings except for Fuhrman’s use of racial epithets and his sexist attitudes toward female co-workers.

“Just about everything Fuhrman told McKinny which could be connected to an actual event was bigger, bloodier and more violent than the facts,” the report concluded. For example, in one case, Fuhrman said a suspect had been beaten to death and three others had been hospitalized with broken bones. But only one suspect actually was treated - for a cut caused by another officer.