Leaks--Drip by Tortuous Drip--Batter LAPD

Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams has been through so many crises since he came to town that he no longer looks uncomfortable when a new one comes along.

The chief was almost at ease Friday when he stepped to the stage of the police headquarters auditorium for a press conference prompted by The Times publishing a portion of America’s most famous tapes, Mark Fuhrman’s remembrances of what sounds like days as a racist, sexist cop who could beat a face into mush.

Williams made a brief statement and then answered questions, something he was reluctant to do a while back. After a few questions, his press aide, Cmdr. Tim McBride, raised a finger in a silent “one more” signal. But the chief ignored him and went on answering.

Lucky for the Los Angeles Police Department--and for L.A.--that Williams is getting over his media shyness. For with the contents of the Fuhrman tapes leaking out, the LAPD is in for its worst bashing since the beating of Rodney G. King in 1991.

It’s not just the content of Fuhrman’s bloody memories. It’s the way they’re coming out, through leaks, contaminating the LAPD drip by drip.

*

Although I work with the reporters who came up with the story, I don’t know their sources. But common sense points to those with the most to gain, the defense “Dream Team,” which has made clear it intends to free O.J. Simpson by putting the LAPD on trial.

The tortuous drip-by-grip leak process is brutally damaging to the Police Department and the part-time commissioners who supervise it.

“Do we sit by the television and wait to see exactly what is going to come out today to know what kind of problem we have?” said Deirdre Hill, president of the Board of Police Commissioners, when we talked in her Westwood law office last week.

At the relatively young age of 35, and with little political experience, Hill is facing a tough job of presiding over a board of five commissioners appointed by Mayor Richard Riordan. Hill, a senior associate specializing in business law with the firm of Saltzburg, Ray & Bergman, is the first African American woman to be president of the commission.

“The problem is we don’t really know what is on the tapes,” she said. “The only thing we know is from the media and what little information that has come out from the case. We are concerned the [tapes] may implicate the entire department and [describe] a subculture which is directly opposed to our mission statement and the core values we’ve adopted--some sort of subculture where it is OK to frame people, where it is OK to target people based upon race, and to disparage women.

“We need to get a handle on what is reality and what is fiction,” she said.

After The Times’ story appeared Friday morning, Hill and Williams took action to get a handle on the mess.

They first needed a copy of the tapes. But Judge Lance A. Ito had limited access to the prosecutors and defense attorneys. Screenwriter Laura Hart McKinny, who taped Fuhrman’s recollections for a screenplay, also has her tapes.

As a result, the Police Department has no idea just what offenses the garrulous Fuhrman had apparently admitted.

McKinny’s lawyers said Chief Williams and commission President Hill could listen to their copy--in the attorneys’ Century City law office. But rather than have the board president and chief traipse out to Century City, hats in hand, the police commission obviously wanted to have its own copy to aid in an investigation that commissioners obviously think is highly important.

So the commission asked City Atty. James K. Hahn, who represents the department in legal matters, “to obtain a copy of the tape recordings immediately.”

*

Despite Judge Ito’s restrictions, the leaks are getting worse. Saturday there were more hot leaks.

I can imagine what this week’s supermarket tabloids and television magazines will do with the tapes. They’ll be stale by the time they’re played in court--if Judge Ito admits them for evidence.

The leaks are great for the defense. Although the jurors won’t hear about them in court, each one delivers a psychological blow against a prosecution team that tends to be easily shaken.

The leaks also pollute a jury pool for a second trial, if one is necessary. And the contents of the tapes may even seep into the consciousness of the present sequestered jury. Nobody monitors pillow talk during conjugal visits.

The leaks certainly don’t hurt Fuhrman, now living in his Idaho hideaway. With all his fame, he could even become one of those extreme right-wing talk show hosts, like Gordon Liddy or Ollie North. In fact, Fuhrman could be North’s vice presidential candidate on a militia party ticket.

The real victim of the leaks will be the Los Angeles Police Department and the city of L.A. If they’re smart, Hahn’s deputies will be at the Criminal Courts Building first thing Monday morning demanding a copy of the tapes so the LAPD can sort out fact from fiction.