
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 18, 1995                   TAG: 9508220025
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

FUHRMAN TAPES RELATE `TORTURE'

In graphic passages from the tapes that have come to dominate O.J. Simpson's murder trial, former Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman said he and other officers went on a bloody beating spree and ``basically tortured'' suspects after two policemen were shot in 1978, then lied to Internal Affairs investigators about the incident.

Fuhrman said he was the primary suspect in an 18-month Internal Affairs investigation that resulted from the 1978 incident, but that he escaped any punishment.

``They knew damn well I did it,'' he said, according to the transcript. ``But there was nothing they could do about it. Most of the guys worked 77th [Street Division] together. We were tight. I mean, we could have murdered people. We all knew what to say.''

Fuhrman was briefly assigned to the Simpson murder case and discovered a bloody glove on the grounds of the former football great's estate, but prosecutors have forcefully argued that the defense's attack on Fuhrman's character and credibility does not prove that he planted evidence and is intended to distract the jury from the question of Simpson's guilt or innocence.

In the transcript, Fuhrman tells screenwriting Professor Laura Hart McKinny about the investigation of a shooting.

``Two of my buddies were shot and ambushed, policemen,'' Fuhrman said, according to the transcript. ``Both down when I arrived. I was first unit at the scene. Four suspects ran into a second-story apartment, and we kicked the door down, grabbed the girl, one of their girlfriends, by the hair, stuck a gun to her head, and used her as a barricade.''

McKinny interrupted Fuhrman at one point during the interview and asked whether she could include those details in her work. Fuhrman objected, however, saying it had not been seven years since the incident and therefore the statute of limitations would not protect him.

``We basically tortured them,'' Fuhrman said in the transcript. ``There was four policemen, four guys. We broke 'em. Their faces were just mush. They had pictures of the walls with blood all the way to the ceiling and fingermarks of trying to crawl out of the room.''

In other Simpson action, a Los Angeles police technician testified Thursday that none of the 17 fingerprints collected by investigators at the condominium where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered belonged to O.J. Simpson.

However, Deputy District Attorney Christopher Darden launched his 25-minute cross-examination by asking the technician, Gilbert Aguilar: ``You wouldn't expect a person wearing leather gloves to leave any fingerprints, would you?'' Investigators recovered one blood-stained glove outside the condo and another from the grounds of Simpson's estate.

Judge Lance A. Ito informed jurors that the defense plans to wrap up its case by the week of Aug. 28.

by CNB