LETTERS: FUHRMAN IS BAD APPLE

To the editor:

Just to set the record straight, I am not a member of any oppressed group except, perhaps, the working class.

Blacks and other minorities have long contended that racist attitudes are a common as pig tracks among law enforcement personnel and that the bones of these attitudes have been given flesh in many instances by false arrests, brutal mistreatment, falsification or augmentation of evidence a perjurious testimony at trial -- mostly directed against blacks and Hispanics. In a rare instance years ago, one such policeman, the infamous Mark Fuhrman, actually owned up to such an attitude to his employers, the Los Angeles Police Department, in an effort to gain early retirement.

The proper response would have been to fire him on the spot for reason of unsuitability and, perhaps, of presenting a danger to the very public which he was bound by oath to protect. Instead, what did the LAPD do? They sent him back to his job as thought he had told them that he needed a new pad of traffic citation forms. Well, that particular chicken came home to roost with a vengeance, did it not?

To those who say that the verdict in the Orenthal James Simpson case was racially motivated, I ask: Since three of the jurors on the panel were not black, what would have motivated them to bring in a not-guilty verdict? I feel that the verdict is only tangentially connected with the issue of race. Fuhrman perjured himself as to his use of the so-called N-word. The perjury came to light and also revealed Fuhrman's interesting opinions on racial equality and on the sanctity of evidence.

Everybody, including those jurors, knows that an intelligent and motivated policeman can find ways we can't even dream of to effect what in his eyes is a desirable outcome to a case, i.e., a conviction. In this case the motivation was a hatred of blacks and particularly of black men who marry or consort with white women.

Fuhrman was quite explicit as to his hatred and his willingness to fudge evidence. I can easily see where a juror, even on who might not be fond of blacks, could bring in such a verdict not so much because of a distaste for Fuhrman's views, but because Fuhrman's views compel a suspicion of evidence tampering.

Those who do not like a verdict arrived at because of such suspicion ought to insist that police departments purge themselves of sick puppies like Mark Fuhrman.

DONN S. MILLER

Tamms, Ill.