Chief Urges LAPD Officers to Fight Bias

As the city stepped up efforts Tuesday to get the explosive tapes of interviews with former Detective Mark Fuhrman, Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams urged officers to be “part of the solution” in stamping out any remaining bias in the ranks.

Calling Fuhrman’s alleged remarks “reprehensible” and not reflective of the attitudes or actions of most in the LAPD, Williams nonetheless told the Police Commission on Tuesday about a message he taped for all employees.

On the tape, to be played at stations across the city today, Williams said he calls on officers and other department employees to ask themselves: “Are you part of the problem, or are you going to be part of the solution” in repairing the department’s battered reputation. He said he urges officers to “disavow any employee” who shows bias based on race, gender or sexual orientation.

At the meeting, Williams also scolded reporters, saying they have allowed themselves “to be used by the defense” in the O.J. Simpson murder trial to create an impression that Fuhrman’s supposed actions and attitudes “represent the LAPD.”

Reports of Fuhrman’s alleged remarks in interviews with an aspiring screenwriter have rocked the Simpson trial, where defense attorneys are trying to use them to discredit the former detective’s testimony about finding important evidence. Fuhrman, who retired earlier this month, reportedly used racial and ethnic slurs and told of beating suspects and manufacturing evidence.

The interviews have sent even stronger shock waves through the department, still struggling to recover from the 1991 police beating of Rodney G. King and from the riots that ensued after officers involved were acquitted in their first trial.

Since then, Williams, an African American, was hired from Philadelphia to implement voter-approved reforms, including greater authority for the appointed Police Commission to oversee the department.

Commissioners seeking to learn more about the Fuhrman interviews have been hampered in that they have not been released to anyone other than the judge and attorneys in the Simpson trial.

News leaks and speculation about the interviews represent “a black eye for all of us,” Commission President Deirdre Hill said before she and other commissioners met with City Atty. James K. Hahn to hear what they can do to try to obtain copies of the interviews.

A commission spokeswoman said one of the options is an offer from the screenwriter’s attorney to allow Hill and Williams to review the interviews in the attorney’s office, but without making copies. Elena Stern, the spokeswoman, said the commission has not yet decided how it will proceed.

Meantime, Hill said, she wants the department to use the furor as “an opportunity to focus on” making changes to make the department as bias-free as possible.

Hill said she was heartened to learn from Police Protective League officials that the union “will not be supporting financially the expenses of Mr. Fuhrman” and that attorney Robert Tourtelot is no longer representing the ex-detective. However, Tourtelot later released a statement saying that he remains Fuhrman’s attorney “in all civil matters and will continue to do so in the future.”

The uproar over Fuhrman spilled into another part of City Hall Tuesday, when the City Council took up the confirmation of Mayor Richard Riordan’s appointees to two vacant seats on the Police Commission. Although attorneys Raymond Fisher and Edith R. Perez won 11-0 approval, the discussion brought an emotional outpouring from Councilman Nate Holden.

Holden, one of three black council members, said the reported slurs and use of excessive force represent the kind of problems that in the past were “swept under the carpet.”

Times staff writers John Schwada and Jim Newton contributed to this story.