Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 30, 1995 TAG: 9508300074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
It was the same voice jurors heard months earlier when the investigator who found the bloody glove on Simpson's property swore he had not spoken the word ``nigger'' in the last 10 years. On the tapes recorded since 1985, he says it 41 times.
The tapes were played to help Judge Lance Ito determine whether they are relevant to Simpson's murder trial. Prosecutor Marcia Clark argued vehemently that they are not.
``The content of these tapes is so repugnant and so offensive that this may well be the most difficult thing that I've ever had to do as a prosecutor,'' she said. She insisted she was not an advocate for Fuhrman but for a case that has produced overwhelming proof of Simpson's guilt.
She urged Ito not to let the case be derailed by ``the very serious and important but very inflammatory social issue'' of racism.
At the end of the day, Ito said the matter was too complex to issue an immediate ruling.
Jurors were not present to hear the racial rhetoric roll off Fuhrman's tongue as casually as any other words he used in the hours of tapes recorded by screenwriter Laura Hart McKinny. They did not hear Fuhrman's declarations about the probable cause police need to arrest blacks:
``Probable cause?'' he asked. ``You're God.''
In the tapes, he says an attorney told him: ``For the rest of your life, this is you: You're `Bloody Glove Fuhrman,' that's it. ... He says you might as well make it pay off. ''
At another point, Fuhrman says: ``If I'm wrestling around with some nigger, and he gets me in my back, and he gets his hand on my gun, it's over.''
McKinny, under cross-examination by a prosecutor, said she realized Fuhrman's under-oath denial of using the slur word ``probably would have been false,'' but she felt no compulsion to notify prosecutors because her interview tapes do not directly exonerate Simpson.
``There was nothing in the tapes that made me feel Officer Fuhrman could have planted evidence in this particular case, no,'' she said.
Another thread in the Fuhrman tapes is violence.
``Most real good policemen understand that they would love to take certain people and just take them to the alley and blow their brains out,'' he declares.
In another excerpt, he boasts: ``We shoot to kill 'em. The only way you can stop somebody is to kill the s-- of a bAnd what's the big deal? If you've got a reason to shoot somebody, you've got a reason to kill him.''
The family of slaying victim Ronald Goldman lashed out at Ito for allowing the tapes to be played.
``He gave the defense an opportunity to enrage people everywhere,'' said Goldman's father, Fred. ``It was an outrage.''
Keywords:
INFOLINE
by CNB