PERSPECTIVE ON LAPD : Don’t Tar Us All With the Fuhrman Brush : It is demoralizing to hard-working police officers to have the public assume they are all racists.

The past four years have been exceedingly difficult for Los Angeles police. The King case, the delayed response to the riots, now the Fuhrman tapes and all the unfortunate incidents in between, have caused morale to plummet. Every time I think that we have hit bottom, things get worse.

My perspective as an insider leads me to believe that all these events are isolated and not representative of the department or its officers. But how can I expect the citizens to believe that? If I were on the outside, I would definitely be skeptical in the face of so many crucial and disturbing events. Are Mark Fuhrman’s offensive stories further proof of a corrupt and racist police department?

Perhaps the best defense is the response to the tapes in the ranks. The reaction is not “Oh no! We got caught!” It is “How sad! How frustrating that people have so little faith in us.”

The issue is not what is said on the tapes. Most of us feel that Fuhrman’s tales are irrelevant because they are clearly fictitious. The issue is the undeserved anger and skepticism we face from the people of Los Angeles, even as we risk our lives for them. The issue is how O.J. Simpson’s defense attorneys and other critics are making our job more difficult and dangerous for their own selfish reasons, even as the department and the city try to rebuild.

Where will the department’s critics be when small-time crooks and career criminals alike use this latest controversy as an excuse to challenge police authority and to continue their assault on society? Where will Johnnie Cochran be when citizens who really need police service hesitate to call, made fearful by his rhetoric? How will Angelenos respond when qualified candidates opt out of a career with the LAPD because of these ugly allegations?

The vile statements on those tape recordings has absolutely no bearing on LAPD officers today. How dare anyone compare me to Mark Fuhrman. How dare anyone compare the officers I work with to Mark Fuhrman. There are bad teachers, preachers and postal workers. No one should expect that police officers are different in this regard; there are more than 8,000 of us in the LAPD, and as in any group of that size, some inevitably will be bad officers. But those who believe that the activities Fuhrman spoke of would be tolerated today know very little about this department or its officers.

I’ve worked with men who clearly would prefer not to work with a female officer. I’ve spoken with Hispanic officers who feel they are more harshly judged than others. Some white officers feel they have been unfairly passed over for promotion, while some African Americans resent that some colleagues perceive their promotions as race-based.

I have handled domestic violence incidents where the husbands have challenged me just because I’m female. African American citizens are sometimes more disrespectful to black officers than to white officers. Korean officers are often denounced by other Asians whom they arrest.

The point is that racial and gender biases and tensions exist inside and outside the department. But to accuse the entire department of a mind-set based on the comments of a mean-spirited braggart like Mark Fuhrman is ridiculous.

In order to defend a client and boost their careers, Simpson’s attorneys have leveled allegations of racism, brutality and corruption at the expense of the majority of decent cops. The usual department critics have responded with anecdotal stories about police misconduct. The clamor has drowned out the many voices of reason trying to remind everyone that the LAPD has been under intense scrutiny for the past four years with reforms already in progress, a new chief on board and a genuine commitment made to community policing by officers.

Despite the bad press, the lousy working conditions, the outdated equipment and the below-parity salary, most officers want to remain with the LAPD. The officers I work with are hard-working, earnest, smart and professional. I entreat the citizens of Los Angeles to see the Fuhrman tapes for what they are: the ramblings of an egocentric degenerate held up by people with special, selfish interests. LAPD officers need and deserve the support of the people of this city.