Mark Fuhrman

Re: Joel Wachs' apology. Congratulations, Mr. Wachs, on your reformation. I am glad that you have decided to stop being racist and bigoted. I am also happy that you have decided to focus your leadership duties toward harmony and away from destructive hatred, given that all people of Los Angeles probably thought that was your goal all along. I, however, have no reason to apologize since I have long believed in treating all people with fairness, courtesy and dignity, and act on that belief.

Steve Gooden spent Saturday asking shoppers to embrace Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles police detective who has been criticized for racist remarks that were revealed in the O.J. Simpson double murder trial. For almost an hour, the Orange resident stood in the high noon heat draping a 10-foot-wide banner proclaiming "Love Mark Fuhrman, To Help End Racism!" over the South Coast Plaza footbridge that arches over Bristol Street.

Federal Justice Department officials met Tuesday with Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams and police commissioners to discuss an ongoing inquiry into retired LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman. They said it was "too soon to comment" on whether a federal investigation will be opened concerning Fuhrman and the LAPD for what may be systemic patterns of abuse by officers.

Finally, after weeks of media anticipation, the most hyped event of the O.J. Simpson trial began Thursday: Detective Mark Fuhrman took the witness stand. Nobody in this trial, except O.J. himself, has gotten such bad press or had his character and behavior so relentlessly subjected to leaks and reportorial examination as the sandy-haired homicide investigator.

Mark Fuhrman, the poster boy for bad cops, will not face federal civil rights prosecution for his alleged brutality while on duty in the Los Angeles Police Department. Justice Department officials have closed the investigation because the former detective's actions took place prior to 1988 and thus the five-year statute of limitations had expired. Just why it took the government three years to find it out is hard to figure.

While discussing the O.J. Simpson trial recently with a friend, he asked, "Am I the only black man in America who doesn't think Simpson was framed?" He was exaggerating for effect, but he has his ear to the ground. Blacks and whites across the country are discussing the Simpson case--typically, though, not with each other--and see things quite differently. A high percentage of African Americans are inclined to believe Simpson was framed by police.

On the day last week that America heard retired Los Angeles Police Detective Mark Fuhrman expound on the subject of race and law enforcement, the reaction was swift. "What I have heard has made me sick," Mayor Richard Riordan declared in prepared statement. "I am saddened and outraged . . ." Sickened, saddened, outraged. And, presumably, shocked. To be sure, one week later many people still seem plainly stunned by Fuhrman's virulence. But why? Long before Johnnie L.

In the news: Comic Argus Hamilton, on Good Housekeeping magazine inadvertently leaving President Clinton off the ballot for Most Admired Man: "And the Clintons are such good housekeepers. Nobody ever cleaned house better than they did the night Vince Foster died." Jay Leno, on the Clintons' vacation in Wyoming: "This is just a small vacation, of course, before the bigger, more permanent one next year."

It was traumatic enough for Greenwich when a sweet teenage girl was murdered in 1975. Then there were rumblings that a relative of the Kennedy family might be involved. Now, 22 years later, the unsolved golf-club beating of 15-year-old Martha Moxley has taken an even more unlikely twist--one that involves, of all people, Mark Fuhrman. That Mark Fuhrman. The former Los Angeles police detective whose racist remarks tainted the prosecution case against O.J.

Former Los Angeles Police Det. Mark Fuhrman refused to answer questions Monday in a deposition for the wrongful-death lawsuit against O.J. Simpson. A source close to the case told Associated Press that he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The deposition was conducted at a golf course building in Rathdrum, Idaho. Simpson was acquitted last year of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.