Fuhrman Has Run-In With Photographer : Police: LAPD detective knocks newspaperman to the floor in Spokane, Wash., airport. He had been in the area hunting for a home in Idaho.

Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman smashed a newspaper photographer with a briefcase and threw him to the ground in an airport terminal Wednesday, just hours after O.J. Simpson’s lawyers had painted the investigator as a rogue cop who fueled a “rush to judgment” against the former football star.

The incident occurred at Spokane International Airport in Washington as Fuhrman was preparing to return to Los Angeles from a house-hunting trip here in Idaho’s remote northern reaches, where he said he plans to retire at the conclusion of Simpson’s murder trial.

Fuhrman hit Dan McComb of the Spokane Spokesman-Review as the photographer continued to snap pictures of the LAPD officer in the airport’s main terminal, according to McComb and news accounts.

The photographer was not injured and declined to press charges, but an editor at the newspaper said he would ask Los Angeles police to review Fuhrman’s actions, which he said were “way out of line.”

Attorneys on both sides of the Simpson murder trial did not comment on the incident and it seemed unlikely that the event would be raised in the courtroom. But in the ongoing battle over public perceptions in the murder case it seemed likely to fuel questions about the detective’s temperament and performance.

Fuhrman and his attorney were not available for comment.

The detective already has been accused by Simpson’s attorneys of racism and planting evidence--the bloody glove that is one of the prosecution’s keys in linking Simpson to the murders of his ex-wife and her friend. Those charges have been rejected by Fuhrman and prosecutors and no evidence of the evidence-planting charge has been produced.

The 43-year-old LAPD veteran had not previously discussed plans to retire. But he will qualify for a pension in November and told the mayor of Sandpoint that he will be retiring soon.

Moments before the altercation, Fuhrman told a reporter from the 125,000-circulation Spokesman-Review that he wanted to retire to Idaho to remove his family from the hurly-burly of life in Los Angeles and to escape death threats connected to the Simpson case.

Fuhrman said he would leave the LAPD after the Simpson trial “whether I like it or not” but declined to elaborate.

The woodsy, picturesque community of Sandpoint, a mountain mecca for fishing, hunting and skiing on the banks of Lake Pend Oreille 50 miles from the Canadian border and 80 miles from Spokane, is known as a favorite retirement spot for Los Angeles police and firefighters. Mayor Ron Chaney said the town, population 5,200, is “very, very well-known in and around the L.A. police and fire departments.”

Fuhrman spent several days looking for homes in Sandpoint after making an initial visit three months ago. He heard about the town from LAPD sources and a friend who works in the building industry in Spokane, and on the previous visit met Chaney’s wife, who sells real estate, the mayor said.

Fuhrman told the newspaper he wanted “to buy property in a place that I can hunt and fish, my kids have good schools to go to and it’s a cultural area. I don’t need the glitz and the glamour and the fancy anythings.”

The detective found anything but peace and solace at the end of his trip, though.

Spokesman-Review reporter Bill Morlin said the paper received a tip that Fuhrman had been house-hunting in the region and that he would be leaving Wednesday evening from the Spokane airport. Morlin said the newspaper believed Fuhrman’s presence was newsworthy because “a celebrity was moving into the area. . . . Here we are three days into the O.J. trial and we have the key player in our town.”

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Morlin and McComb waited for Fuhrman and his wife to finish a meal before approaching them in the airport terminal. According to interviews with the two journalists and the newspaper’s account, this is what happened next:

A stunned Fuhrman demanded to know how the newspaper had found him. He then grudgingly answered questions for about 10 minutes. The detective was “reasonably cordial” at first, despite concerns that his plans for a quiet retirement might be destroyed, Morlin said.

But Fuhrman exploded in a rage when McComb--who had been hanging back with his camera during the interview--began snapping pictures. Fuhrman swung a metal briefcase at the photographer, catching him in the chest. When this failed to stop McComb from taking pictures, Fuhrman grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him to the ground, ripping several buttons from his shirt.

The fracas was finally defused when Spokane airport police arrived, although authorities said they would not pursue the matter without a complaint from McComb.

“You had a guy here who was clearly out of line,” said Chris Peck, managing editor of the Spokesman-Review, who said he will write a letter of protest to the LAPD. “Law enforcement officers need to be held to a high standard of restraint and that is something that (the LAPD) ought to look into.”

Just a whiff of the Simpson murder case brought international media attention, if just for a few hours, to the newspaper’s city room. Said an operator at the newspaper: “ ‘Inside Edition’ or ‘Current Affair’ or somebody is standing in the hallway right now. And our fax is working overtime. This has really rattled our cage up here.”

Rainey reported from Los Angeles and Conner from Sandpoint.