What Does the Fuhrman Controversy Tell Us About the LAPD?

How is it possible for a police officer who is, by his own statements, prejudiced toward minorities, and who may have lied in a failed attempt to win a disability pension, rise up through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department to become a respected homicide detective?

That is the question raised by the controversy surrounding Det. Mark Fuhrman, one of the LAPD’s elite homicide investigators who responded to the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. O.J. Simpson’s defense team has accused Fuhrman of racism, even suggesting that the detective may have planted a bloody glove he found at the former football hero’s Brentwood mansion.

Fuhrman’s alleged racism stems, in part, from his attempt to win a stress-based disability pension a dozen years ago. Some of his statements to examining physicians reflected deep-seated racial bias. The detective further indicated that he believed himself incapable of controlling his emotions and feared that he might commit some irrational act as an officer.

A physician retained by the city’s pension board concluded that Fuhrman was faking his disabilities, and his stress claim was denied. Fuhrman sued. As a consequence, his statements and the resulting doctor’s reports, normally confidential, became public record.

Whether or not the charges against Fuhrman are true, the broader question is institutional: Does the LAPD tolerate, even condone, prejudicial attitudes as just part of the job of being an officer? When deciding promotions, does management consider such information as might be contained in a stress-disability application? If an officer files for a disability pension and is denied, should he or she be returned to full duty as if nothing had ever happened?

The simplest, and possibly the most accurate, answer to a case like Fuhrman’s is that the department’s command staff is unaware of the file contents of officer disability claims and, accordingly, of any troublesome problems they may hint at. A quick look at the pension-application process helps to explain why.

Any officer who claims a duty-connected injury or illness files an application for a disability pension with the City Department of Pensions. The department, not having an investigative capability, asks the LAPD to supply the facts of the incident that led to the claim. The officer is examined by physicians to establish and report on the degree and character of the reputed disability.

All the gathered information is confidential until a public hearing is held before the Board of Pension Commissioners. The officer’s file becomes public when the board accepts it as evidence. When the hearing is concluded, the file is closed and its contents protected by law.

None of these procedures automatically bars police managers from learning about any officer’s disability claim. Yet, they routinely don’t look into such cases. As a result, valuable information is lost, particularly in the case of officers whose pensions are denied and who return to work still believing they are disabled.

There is another, far more disturbing answer to how an officer can be racially prejudicial and still promotable. LAPD management is aware of attitudes like Fuhrman expressed but looks the other way. It is just locker-room talk. As long as such attitudes do not affect conduct, they may be offensive to some but are essentially harmless.

Two examples drawn from recent LAPD history provide some clues.

* One-on-one conversations with a broad sample of current LAPD officers. They reveal a widely held perception that prejudice, racial and otherwise, affects the actions of many officers and that such prejudice is tolerated by the organization. A departmental survey conducted in the aftermath of the Christopher Commission recommendations confirmed this conclusion. And, as might be expected, cops who are Latino, African American, female, gay or lesbian express much stronger views on what they see as institutional acceptance of prejudice. Many have filed discrimination suits against the LAPD.

* The survival, for nearly a decade, of the loosely organized “Men Against Women,” known as MAW, in West Los Angeles precincts. A former command officer in West L.A. has described the group as a semi-serious protest against reputed preferential treatment given women and minority officers in hiring, assignment and promotion decisions. Only recently have efforts to curtail the group’s activities been successful.

A final possibility that cannot be discounted is that officers who lose a disability bid make a U-turn in thinking and accept the proposition that if you cannot get out, you’d better get along. To the extent that these kinds of reversals occur, they do so in spite of management.

What can be done to ensure that the LAPD’s culture is not accepting of prejudicial attitudes?

First, the LAPD must engage in candid introspection. More than anecdotes should be collected; the results of reports routinely ignored, including pension files and summaries of litigation against the department and individual officers, should be thrown into the mix. Department management must not arbitrarily dismiss responses that clash with their image of the organization.

Second, departmental management must, by act and word, convey its serious intention to eradicate internal prejudice. Promulgating orders and providing mechanisms to address the problem are only steps toward creating the necessary leadership. Allowing underground movements such as Men Against Women to survive communicates far more about official attitudes than all the regulations aimed at stopping them.

Third, management must ensure through intensive education that officers understand their obligations, to their colleagues and to the public, to cleanse the work place of prejudice. This effort must include progress reports.

Finally, employees who cannot overcome their prejudice must be encouraged to seek other employment or retirement. They owe that to their fellow employees and to the community they serve.