Men Against Women Club

So media This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast in which Sophie misses the mysterious robot woman who I believe was murdered and Sophie believes was never a person but was instead just a program that Zoom used to have and they replaced it with a thing that tries to get you to use AI whenever you record. Yeah, well, we don't use Zoom anymore, but I do miss the little I forget what we use. I don't I do miss the lady being like recording in progress so I'm in progress. But I could just say I thought that maybe she misses you. Probably everybody misses. I never think that, James. not James. You're Joe. Joe Kassabian, our gu today. of theence led by Donkeys' podcast, author of numerous works of fiction and at least one work of nonfiction, the Hooligans of Kandahar. Joe, what else do you got a plug for us here? U my newest gunpowder fantasy novel, The Highlands Burn comes out may twenty ninth. It willll probably be out by the time this episode comes out. So yeah, pick that up. It'll be available ebook, audiobook, paperback wherever you get your books. Awesome Check that out and check out, you know Joe, you can't have gunpowder fantasy without Both gunpowder and people who are willing to lie. And you know who? always has a gun and also lies a lot U cops Yeah Exactly. Joe, that worked. Okay, okay. okay, is a better e show than I thought. Great, greatreat. And just in the last, you know, literally the week that we're recording this, it'll have been a couple of weeks ago when you good people on the internet or at Netflix, which I guess is also on the internet get to listen to slash Wash these episodes We lost a great man and a great a great law enforcement officer, Joe. and you know, I can let's all take our hats off a moment of silence for for a great man Officer Mark Ferman, you know, we all We all miss him. We all miss him. you know, it's hard it's hard going on without Mark, you know? I have trouble. What's the point of life without Mark Ferman withithout a really racist detective who's largely responsible for O.J. Simpson getting away with murder. I think I'm gonna like garden this weekend and like, you know, go outside, touch some grass and like not think about Mark Ferman at all. but For the next couple hours, I guess. We're gonna be thinking a lot about Mark Ferermman. To be fair, Sophie, that is something you're gonna to have in common with Mark Fermman.s's gonna Yeah,ah he is, he is. he is forever and ever. Fun fact. fact the week that we're recording. Yeah. The original intro that I had written out for this started as Leo Tolstoy would have said, all great episodes of Behind the Bastards are one of two stories. A bad person goes on a journey or a famous asshole just died. And that's what we're doing this week, right? We're doing our eulogy and the life and times of former LAPD detective and OJ Simpson trial star Mark Furman and if you're not if you didn't live through the OJ trial like everybody recording the podcast right now or if your memories have just faded O.J Simpson was really good at football. The pretty good at being in fucking the naked guy I think was it, nor was it airplane? He was in a couple of movies. He was an airplane., right? don't I was born in eighty eight, so this is R say on my line, you know? Yeah So he's very famous, beloved sports star, transitioning into just general star. and then his wife and her partner, his ex wife and her partner are found brutally murdered. Oh, J Ded it, we don't need to beat around the bush here, right? Like're not saying what if I did You wrote a book saying if I did it, you U But he didn't get convicted. And if you ask people, why didn't he get convicted? Obviously there's a lot of different reasons It jg doesn't fit Basically everyone agrees that the reason why OJ ultimately, and there's a number, but the reason why OJ ultimately got acquitted is because a police detective named Mark Furman, who was, you know, part of the one of the first guys on scene and one of the guys involved with like the finding of that famous black glove was revealed to be a super racist because of a bunch of tapes where he had talked about all of his racist beliefs and his joy of doing things like planting evidence to get black people convicted of crimes that they hadn't committed. And this dropped into the OJ. Simpson case like a bombshell and is said to have played a major role on why OJ got off is that Mark Furman really muddied the waters because he was such a racist piece of shit It brought into question all of the evidence around OJ and all of the police work that had been done to gather that evidence. And so it ultimately just torpedoed the case. And that's somewhat debatable. But Mark, because of how famous the case was and because of how big the story went that this LAPD detective had been talking about all these crimes that a ton of LAPD cops were implemented in It caused this huge scandal for the department. So it was very influential on the history of like law enforcement and very influential for the LAPD and just within American culture. And so that is the story we're telling this week the story of Mark A you excited, Joe Uh I will say for all of the episodes I've been on this show, this one has the lowest body count. No direct deaths Did you have me on because Kim Kardashian's dad is involved in this? That's right That's right.'s the Armenian did not racially profilile. I fucking knew it, Robert. Yes, yes. because I needed to have someone who was on OJ's side and all Armenians like inherently support OJ Simpson because of Robert Kardashian. Yeah. We have no choice. One of Robert's favorite things to bring up constantly is when Ros from friendriends with Robert Kardian. Robert Kardashian. That was weird A It was really st. was really weird casting. Yeah. I to put in They kind of put him in brown face in a way. It was stright. Yeah. I just love the way he kept saying juice This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human This is George Severis and Sam Tagger from Stradio Lab. Let's be real, home comes with a lot of odors. Cooking, pets, everyday life. That's where Fabriz comes in. Fabriz helps fight household odors and leaves behind freshness that lasts. And with over thirty cents to choose from, you'll always find one that feels like you. Fabriz. Freshness that fits your life, your space, your style Fabz is a proud sponsor of the Elton John Impact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to equality. You won't want to miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first, on the IiHart Radio app and everyverywhere podcast are heard Between work, family, and trying to keep your succulents alive, Air Tasker knows you've got a full plate U pllates actually, and they're all spinning. I need the driveway repaved, someone to water my plants while I'm out of town, and someone to do my nails, and my miniature ponies Tasks big, medium and Minni We don't judge. We just help you keep it moving Go to ritasker. com or download the app Air Tasker. G anything done When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum Tanning does it better. Beeachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations, with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. Rcharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you The wait is over. Live table games have arrived in New York City. Experienceced Blackjack Baklara. Craps in Roulette twenty four seven only at Resorts Wor, New York City. Gambling problem callall eight seven seven eight Hopeen Y or text Hopeen Y or four six seven, three six nine. M must be twenty one or older to gamble standard messagerers supply. Okay, let's begin our episode Okay. Mark James Furman was born on february fifth, nineteen fifty two in Eatonville, Washington. Now that's not that far from where Sophie and I live right now up here in the Pacific Northwest. Today, Eatonville is about seventy five percent white. I think it's a little bit less than seventy five percent white, but not much And it was a lot witer than that in the nineteen fifties. So you know the PNW is a very white place today and it was even more so back then. and that is definitely the kind of community that Mark grows up in. What became Eatonville began with the homestead of a guy named Thomas Cobb Van Eaton in eighteen eighty eight, constructed very close to picturesque Mount Rainier As more settlers arrived in the area and particularly began to advance towards the mountain, Eaton turned his homestead into a business, selling necessities to travelers. People settled around his house, and in nineteen oh three, a railroad connection made Eatonville a real town, and the Eatonville Lumber Company the biggest business in town Prior to that point, settlers in the area had tended to just call the whole area Mashels Prairie after a group of Niscali Indians who originally inhabited the region These native people had been massacred in eighteen fifty six by a militia known as Maxon's Raiders in retaliation for a fight with a Washington militia a few weeks earlier. I think this iss all part of the Puget sound warar U perer the website historylink d. orgot offfficial reports claimed only eight of the national hostils were killed, but virtually all accounts and testimonies agree that the raiders under Maxon's command killed defenseless elderly, women, children, and infants So that's where Mark's Homometown comes from. many such cases in the US. lot of little genocide villas out in the PNW and elsewhere I love that this whole town just started because a bunch of dudes squatting on another dude's front lawn Yeah, ye after wiping out the people who had previously lived there. Yeah. Yeah. That's the classic Pacific Northwest trarait. Very tail as old as well the PAW And Mark would have grown up he wouldn't have been grown up being taught that like Maxon's Riders had killed all of these peoples like kids. right? Like they would have been taught. And there was a battle, you know, and they killed eight of these braves, right as opposed to. And then a genocide was done They killed a hundred warriors parethesis. Warriors. Women and children. The original military aged males.. So he would have been raised, as I stated, in a community that was nearly all white, and in which legends of Indian hunters, like Maxon's Raiders would have been celebrated in school and in the popular culture of the day. Racism would not have been weird for him I've never read Mark discuss any of this history, notot even in his books. Does he really talk a lot about his childhood? But he wouldn't have been able to avoid this kind of stuff growing up in the region His dad, Ralph was a truck driver and a carpenter, and would be described later by Mark as insensitive and irresponsible, as well as a Braggart who doesn't mind hurting his loved ones. His mom, Billy, was a waitress Their marriage was not a love match, and the two divorced when Mark was just seven years old. I can't I can't imagine how their kid ended up being a cop. Yeah, ye shoc. Shocking. this guy who talks about what an asshole, what a violent angry asso his dad was turns into a violent angry asshole. It does happen sometimes U It's a bummer. I don't know. I actually hate that this happens, but it's not. It's not good So Mark stays mostly with his mom who remarries once, but not for very long, as she has a hellish drinking problem for those who knew her could be a mean drunk. So again, Mark doesn't just grow up with his dad being this very abrasive kind of figure. his mom who largely raises him is like an abusive drinker at sometimes Mark Thus grows up, this same person alleged, very mistrustful and paranoid, right? This is something you'll hear from people who are close to him is he's just kind of a paranoid kid who has trouble being at ease with people, which is not an uncommon reaction to growing up in an abusive household, right? Yeah this is all tracking so far. It's all tracking so far An article in the New York Times Review of Books by Fox Butterfield notes this about Mark's level of u call it racial awareness as a child. Oh no. only a few yeah Only a few bllack families lived in Eatonville, and mister Fermman and his younger brother, Scott had run ins with two boys and one of them, the Blues. They'd see you coming down the street and say, hereere come the Nwards, recalled Daniel Blue, now a truck driver in Tacoma Washington So that's this clan. bothoth the blues will say that like Mark and his brother would use racial slurs, target them with racial slurs, would make fun of them, you know, would mock them. We're like bullies. We're racist bullies, right? Yeah For his part Mark has denied these allegations, right? orr at least he denied them back in the late nineties. And he writes a book after the O.J. Simpson trial because everybody does called Murder in Brentwood. and he addresses the allegations from the Blue Bothers during this book And this is again, this is while he's like right after the case. So he's been essentially revealed as a racist to the entire world. So he has to address that and his bookmark says that although Dan like basically this is a lie. I never said that to anybody, you know, Dan says that we played football together, but we weren't even at high school at the same time. so we couldn't have played football together U And I guess that's probably true, but also I can see Dan like mixing up who he played football with and when but remembering accurately somebody called him a slur, you know, like people pretty easing up in Yeah Yeah But Mark did say, the truth is, I never heard either brother called anything other than their name, by me or anyone else And that's the thing. if before Mark saying like, well, we weren't even in high school together. you know, this is a big story at the time, I'd be willing to believe maybe somebody would like life for attention you know, to have a little moment in the biggest news story of all time at this point. But Mark is like, I never heard anyone call those boys a name. I'm sorry. You guys grew up. These are like the only two black kids in town you grew up in the fifties in rural Washington. and you never heard anyone call them anything but their name I don't believe that. I don't like that for a second Now for a second And like even like the idea like, oh, well, we couldn't have played football together. We weren't even in the same grade. Yeah, because nobody who lives in the neighborhood, a small town plays pickup football games ever would ever have played any kind of fake pickup football game, right And the it's the or would have mistaken like you for young brother, maybe. I don't know. likeike the the whole the whole idea that like he never heard any racism against these kids in small town Washington. Like growing up in rural Oklahoma in the nineties, I heard black kids in my school get called slurs, you know? Dfinitely like And number one, it was a lot more diverse. like rural Oklahoma way more diverse than rural Washington But just the whole fucking like that I just like that from the jump, Mark, you're lying. So I don't how racist he was, but he grew up with a lot of racism Mark moved around as an adolescent and attended high school first in Gig harbor and then Bellfare. In nineteen seventy, he graduated high school. By this point, Mark had come to be known for something besides his racism. He was an artsy kid, weirdly enough, like is really likes He wants to be a creative. He wants to like U be, you know, pursue a creative vocation. That seems to be his passion. And he will always and also the people who are close to him will always say that like Mark at his core wanted to be an artist. And I think there's a version of this story that's like also the tragic tale of like a kid who Because of the time and place and his ideas about like Macho stuff couldn't do the thing that would have made him happy and so kept forcing himself to do these aggressive masculine things that he didn't really want because he just wants to be an artist. but in nineteen seventy, he graduates and enlists in the Marines because that's what you do, right? Was he also turned down by an art school in Austria? or is this a weird d. Ites doesn't even apply. Doesn't even apply. But he does kind of do the Hitler, right? L where he volunteers for the stupid war that he didn't necessarily need to volunteer for. And so instead of continuing or doing anything to further the art thing, he winds up going to NM. He serves, I should say during the Vietnam War. He is a Vietnam era veteran. I guess he is a veteran of the Vietnam. He's deployed to Vietnam but he doesn't he's not a combat veteran, right? Like she never actually fights and he will claim otherwise. I' people relevant. Yeah. that's people Yeah Yeah. and but he and the only again, there's no shame in that, but he he will lie about this, right? And that's why that's relevant. Mark's service came late in the war and was in reality quite boring. He doesn't actually get to do any of the stuff that like you get the thing he really wants to fight, right? Like this is a kid who like As a lot of young men do wants to prove himself in combat, like feels like he wants to, wants to have that experience, and he's not going to get it. He gets trained as an MP and a machine gunner and rises to the level rank of sergeant during his four years in the cororps. He could have been deployed to combat, but it never quite happened. That That New York Times Review of Books article claims that, quote, the closest he got to the ground war was aboard a ship in the South China Sea. The ship he's on is the USS New Orleans and it's an amphibious transport ships. and Mark is basically like living there and like on call. like if we need to, you might get sent into combat at any point in time. But it never actually quite happens. So Mark spends a period of time just kind of living for months on like the edge of maybe going into battle, but he never gets to like consummate this act really does seem to mean a lot to him. And this this act is like the fact that this gets interrupted, that he never gets his baptism of fire is going to bother him the rest of his life Like I get the feeling he never fully gets over not being tested in this way. and he seems to really want that Um, I've met a lot of guys like that over the years. Yeah. ye. ye they want it so much. They enlist as like infantry dudes. And then they end up on like a massive forward operating base that might have a rocket fired at it And they want to sound like the most high speed Greenb S motherfucker for the rest of their life And they probably wear hats about where exactly they were stationed We exactly whatever Yeah, like Camp Liberty. like that's the lamest Fucking shit My favorite was Cold War veteran hat. I've seen. Dad That one' a classic, man. Yeah. That's like the ultimate dude who never did shit. Yeah. I love a in it's the like I feel I feel Like I have a level of understanding because like there is our society does idolize the experience of being a combat veteran to such an extent for young men that like I get why he's obsessed with this. Of course he is, R right? It's not familiar thing. And you know, I'm not like no one's like very few people are immune entirely to that feeling of like, oh, there's got to be like something to this experience that's like special and powerful. and wrote a wholeope about it. Yeah ye And when somebody believes that and buys into that and goes as far as getting on the assault boat next to the coast but never quite gets to have it, there's like a degree of failure to launch almost syndrome that I think is just going to spark in him the rest of his life. He never gets over this, you know? And he doesn't even go into the country, right? Like he's living on this boat. So it's like he's living on the boat Yeah, that's like even worse because even if you go to one of these bases it's very similar to any other irregular conflict where you might get ambushed still, you might get artillery, you might get mortdered, whatever. something could still happen that you can kind of grab onto that you did something. But he's just sitting on a boat He's just sitting on a boat and it's just not the thing he wants it to be. Now again, he does this is he's not a draftty. so he's not just doing as like, you know, one quick, you know, in and out. He does a full four years During his time as a sergeant, he develops a reputation for what that Times journalist Butterfield calls a reputation as a macho officer. And again, he's not an officer. that's Butterfield using the wrong terminology. He's a non commommissioned officer. He's Yeahah he's a nonc and not specifically a macho quote in the Clint Eastwood dirty hairy mold. And Mark's kind of love this movie when it comes out, not long after and he is going to deliberately like try to playay act as dirty Hirry. Like people are especially early in his career, he's like often kind of lararping specifically as dirty Hirry and he'll compare himself to dirty Hirry a lot That really wants something Dor shit, Robert. It's really dor. I serious man, Do we shit Come on bro C on L it Sir Yeah, it's it's it's sad and it just the the number of like toxic men like this who You could just you really needed like an older brother who would be like, Hey, man I know you've gotten a lot of picked up a lot of shit from like comic books and like movies about like what men are supposed to do and and that's all wrong. You need to like calm down and get comfortable in your own skin. Like you're not missing anything because you didn't get shot at. Like there were he never he didn't have any I really get the feeling there was not There wass not any kind of positive male influence in his life who could have like modeled proper behavior. So's he's doing these things like, well, I guess I go to the Marines and that'll make me a man. You know? And then later it's going to be, I guess Ill become a cop and that'll make me a man. And you get the feeling this is a guy who doesn't know who he is and who who has some it's not even that. This is guy who knows a little of who he is. He knows he wants to be an artist But he can't do that. And so he never gets to find out like more of the person that he might otherwise be as he falls into pretending to be this violent macho asshoold. and gradually that becomes him more and more is kind of the thing that I take out of this This is a guy I don't think had to go down this route, but chose to over time because he was scared to try to portray himself as anything else what's the chaotic evil version of a glow up Right, right, exactly. Mark's second wife, Janet Hackett, later told reporters, He loved art, but he joined the Marines and the police as if he was trying to prove himself. On the outside, Mark is very poised, but inside, he had the lowest self esteem you can imagine So that's one of his three ex wives. I'm not making all of this up myself, you know U This isn't just like my head canannon. That's at least someone who was close to him saying pretty much the same thing So after he does his four years with the Marines, Mark decides to see if joining another heavily armed group of men working for the government might stop him from feeling insecure So he joins the LAPD in nineteen seventy five. He excels at Police Academy, and he graduates second in his class with widespread praise from his instructors. When he becomes a rookie cop, his bosses were all impressed by his appearance. Mark is in great shape. his uniform is always spotless. He like looks really good. He looks like the perfect cop. He's like tall, blonde haired, blue eyed, and you know, his shit's always like really like locked down Right His back friends and A the Marines have taught him how to do that. Yep, yep, yep. And he's also he's kind of a fastidious dude His background as an art nerd shows through here too. His superiors noted that his penmanship was, quote, almost a work of art Right? Like that's one of his like, LA like his superiors in LABD is that like his writing was beautiful. Like his fwriting They're just like finger painting Yeah, yeah, they could barely read. Yeah, you know who else can barely read? Joe Who's that The sponsors of this podcast all nearly illiterate thanks to America's broken public education system. Guys don't like talking about ED, but if something's been off in the bedroom You're not alone, and you don't need to wait longer than you need to take action Getting real treatment is simple and through Hys, it's one hundred percent online At some point, you've got to stop blaming stress, sleep or just getting older. If bedroom performance is in question, it's probably crossed your mind to do something about it Good news, you don't have to jump through hoops to fix it. HIMS connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home. No awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines. 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Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you And we're back that wasn't even really a joke. There's a good joke The sponsors of this podcast are illiterate. A shocking number of Americans functionally are. Anyway T time to be writing a book, Robert. Let me tell you. Yeah. ye. know the pion is my laugh Mhm Yeah. So in his first days as an LAPD rookie, Mark seems to have been very eager to please and impressed. He would often show up to work like a half hour or to an hour early. This commitment to going above and beyond the job description was recognized by his bosses. and in nineteen seventy seven, he was assigned to a dangerous but prominent assignment, working with a sexy new unit in East LA targeting Hispanic street gangs Forer an article in the L.A. Times, quote, In nineteen seventy seven, with black gangs emerging as a formidable criminal element and Latino gangs continuing to pose problems, department administrators received a one year federal grant for a special forty four man unit to concentrate on neighborhoods where gang crime was heaviest Based at the Hollenbeck Division in East Los Angeles, the unit was dubbed Total Resources Against Street hoodlams. trash. but civic leaders thought the acronym disparaging Total resources against street hoodlums. Hoodlums. Come on guysat. I love to use my fifties sling Yeah Now it is the seventies, but yeah, it still seems outdated. Ultimately the trash get those rabouts. Yeah, get the rabouts out of here. And people probably haven't heard about the trash program, but a lot of Angelinoss have heard about the crash program and the That's where I thought you were going. I was like Of course this guy was a fucking crash unit That's where I am going because the trash unit is the immediate precursor to the crash unit. So start crash unit like seventy seven. I think it's seventy nine They change the name to Crash. They're like, Ohh, you know what? Crash is a bad acronym. But if we throw a C in there, you know It changes everything. That sounds a lot better, right? It's what we're doing on the streets is not the problem, Robert. It's what we're calling ourselves to put out a really cool challenge coin. Right. Total, T for total, That's bad. Ta for community, That's good So the crash program becomes the cornerstone of Chief Daryryl Gates's anti gang initiative The goal here was to counter gang activity by treating the battle against organized crime as if it were a literal war to use the lessons of insurgent conflict in Vietnam in order to defeat street crime One major early measure adopted by the LAPD was the use of stop and frisk tactics, which they referred to as jamming So, you know, lot a lot of racism, a lot of like targeting of black and Hispanic men and a lot of like targeting in a way that leads to violence when there doesn't need to be. So a lot of people are going to get beaten and arrested and killed who don't need to be because this program is basically built in order to ensure there are additional unnecessary violent interactions between law enforcement and the community Yeah I had to name it crashed because it was really hard to find an acronym for the word boomering. Yeah, yeah So the city government judged the Cash program a success and took over funding it in ' seventy nine. And again, that's when it becomes crash instead of trash. And I'm not sure by what metric you'd call crash success in nineteen seventy nine. As that article noted, from seventy nine to eighty one, the number of major gang related crimes in Los Angeles more than doubled from twenty eighty eight to five thousand one hundred fifty eight During the first like four years or so that the crash program, I mean, for during the second two years of it, but like yeah, from like seventy nine to eighty one, it doubles more than Now, what's funny is that around that time, the Sheriff's Department had a program with a similar goal that worked much better. like the Shereriff's anti gang program is a lot more effective than the LAPD's. But the LAPD just kind of keeps ballzing their way through crash, which critics say spread out police attention far too widely A large part of the problem with these anti gang units is that they had very little effective oversight and a ton of incentive to lock people up for bullshit reasons and carry out acts of extreme violence against them. These programs would ultimately culminate in the shattering LAPD rampart scandal. This keeps getting worse and worse until it blows up in a major way that causes massive problems, like all LAPD scandals, because that's how the LAPD works. You know, L we're always building to something that's going to blow up in the city of Los Angeles' face They had to create their own gangs to fight gangs with tattoos and colors and you know, especially the shheriff's Department, ironically enough The only way to beat a bad guy with a gang is a bad guy also with a gang. That's right That's right. One is paid by the government. But yeah, one of them has official badges. So at the same time as crash is making the gang problem worse, it contributes to this ever growing sense of unease and this building racial tension in Los Angeles. This is all like the whole all of the bad things about this program are going to help pause and lead to the LA riots, right? This all feeds into Rodneick King and you know the reaction of that. whyy everyone is so fucking pissed at the LAPD, you know, before that even happens Um For his partark, Mark does not seem to have liked anti gang work He described his mission to his second wife who he was married to during this period as to quote, harass anyone who looked like a gang member and obliterate them That's assum he would love to work. Yeah. he does not. per the times, The job put enormous pressure on Mr. Furermman, Mrs. Hackett said, That's his ex. He was blonde and blue eyed, six foot three, and he stood out in a crowd in the largely Hpic neighborhood, she said He became a lot more on the edge, moody and depressed because of the job, Mrs. Hackett recalled. Sometimes he refused to talk or smile for days You don't need to be there. No one's making you do this job. I'm not surprised it's miser. It sounds awful. R, you have a job you could just quit. You're not the Marines anymore. J just have the bricks. She doesn't tell us a lot. L I don't have a ton of detail inside their marriage, but you get a lot from the fact that she's like, yeah, he seemed miserable. so I left him. I got out of there. Like she divorces him because of his moodiness, like right around this dibe So Mark winds up alone and has to like live with a fellow cop in an apartment. This does not make him less depressed. I think he cause de. And like the cause of his sadness should be pretty obvious. He wants to like be an artist. He doesn't like this job, but his need to prove himself as a man has forced him into a series of brutal, dangerous, and pointless jobs that make him miserable and make him miserable to be around And he seems to have recognized this as well. In nineteen eighty one, the LAPD had just opened a behavioral science serervice section which hosted the first police psychological counseling unit in the country So There aren't any police psychological counselors officially until nineteen eighty one Which Brouts G explains a lot. It's fun, right? They do so well nowadays. Yeah, yeah, it helps so much today. Yeahay It changed American policing obviously. Yeah. afterfter this, there were no more problems. Solved it And actually this actually explains maybe why the counseling doesn't help and even can contribute to making things worse. Within like the construct of these police departments Be M a book called Killology. We' whatver held It's a little worse than the head actually. It's weird. So Mark sits down, he has a counseling session with a psychiatrist or psychologist named Susan Sachs Clifford. and she talks to him and he goes through because he's trying to get he wants to quit. He wants to get like a medical pension, basically, like a disability pension. So he starts telling her this elaborate story about how he has uncontrollable urges to commit acts of violence on suspects, sometimes choking and beating them because he's just like overwhelmed by a desire to do like murderous vioolence to them As a result of his military training. He tells this to the department psychologist. and Susan's like, I think you should turn in your gun Wh twoo things are true. Number one That's a very reasonable response on Susan's surprisingly. I surprised I love doing violence to suspects. but it's also kindind of why programs like this are doomed to fail or make the problem worse? because If you're going to have And apparently we are Organizations in every city where a bunch of guys are given guns and the ability to use them with almost impunity to stop quote unquote crime. and You don't have any way for those guys when they're having a psychological problem to like say, hey, I'mving a psych problem and have it not ruin their career You might cause a lot of worse problems, right? Like if that's how they see it, sure. Yeah, then they're just not going to say anything. or like Also when she's like, I think you should turn in your gun Yeah, obviously, he remains a cop Right? Like he remains a cup So it's not like there's any Force and you know, it's like the concept of international law, right? Like it's all just a list of suggestions Yeah with no meaningful enforcement Right with no and with with this thing set up almost to like encourage guys not to talk about stuff. Now that said, I would go more into like, oh, the psychological issues here, except for I think he's lying from the jump. I think he just doesn't want to do this job anymore, right?? So I don't even want to treat this like it's a serious psych issue that he's actually coming to them with. But I can see how This would make guys like that less willing to talk about their problems too. For her part, Dr. Sachax Clifford later said, I wouldn't remove someone from duty unless I had very serious concerns. The very fact that he had said these things to a doctor shows bad judgment. And I gotta say, I think that's a bad way to phrase it that like, well, but shouldn't he say things to a doctor if he's feeling them like this Is that she might want a bad b judment? Yeah. I think it's good if you are if legit if you were really, if a cop was legitimately feeling uncontrolled or just to murder people And he decided as a result, I need to go to a therapist. That's actually good judgment, I'd say R Right Really Right? Well, if you know, if he was really troubled, he wouldn't have told me. So that's fine. Yeah I think that's a bad psych maybe. I think this might be a bad therapist. Yeah, I think she might not be good at her shop. Yeah. S to think she went to the University of Phoenix or some shit Yeah. And like that said, I don't think Mark's telling the truth here, right? Be Firman wants out of the force and he wants to get a permanent disability pension by arguing that his experiences in the gang unit fucked him up too badly to go on He does get placed on temporary workers' comp leave and so he's getting paid to not work and he's able to go take art classes. So he he goes to like Long Beach City College, he starts taking art courses. He's like happy for like a year or so while this process is going on as he's trying to get cashiered out on disability because he gets to take his art classes. painting the finest hand turkey the university has ever seen. Exactly. Yeah. Weeping with beauty. at it ye. Here's the thing. the cops don't want to the cops They don't want to do that. They don't want to like pay him forever to not work. They would like him to either return to duty or to quit without a permanent pension because he hasn't really served very long and they think this is bullshit too But Mark really wants that disability pension. And so later in nineteen eighty one, he applies for one, telling his superiors that he's just been too damaged by the job to go on So this point, you're probably wondering, how do I know that he's lying One reason would be Mark Furman's mouth was moving throughout all of this. That's a pretty good indicator to tell if he's lying. However, I have other evidence. Mark told the doctors at the time, who had been assigned to evaluate him for his disability claim, that he'd loved his time in Vietnam and had fond memories of becoming a trained killer He lied about his actual deployment, regaling them with stories of heavy combat and near death experiences. At the same time, per Dror Ronald Cogler, he quote, bragged that he never had any second thoughts about what he did in Vietnam, never had any flashbacks And I guess that's true because he just sat on a boat Why would you second guess that? But that's not what he means, right? you know? But I think the one moral thing that Furman ever tried to do Hear me out here is steal a pension from the LAPD. It is it is. This is hit at the moral height of his life. Absolutely. We would all have been better off if he'd stolen a pension from the LAPD. So I think Furman's plan was to try and argue that because the Marine Corps had made him into such a lethal killing machine, he was unsafe to be a cop because he couldn't see suspects without wanting to beat and maim them. And per Dr. Coogler, he traces his feelings about violence to his experiences in the Marines Mark told another panel of doctors who evaluated him, I'm really capable of violent things. I feel like I'm out on a limb and someone's sawing it off. I have this urge to kill people And again I think these are lies, but it could have worked if it weren't for the fact that Mark was like the millionth LAPD cop to realize that a permanent disability pension sounded way better than working for a living The department was noted nationwide as having a number one, an unusually good pension plan that promised officers with a psyche disability up to half their pay, tax free for life And so from nineteen eighty to ninet Yeah, not a bad deal. Yeah. From nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty five, one hundred and seventy five LAPD officers were granted stress disability pensions, which became known as psycho pensions. That's like the the term within the department for this The fact that these kind of disability pensions were weirdly common just in LA was noted in a nineteen eighty five Los Angeles Times article by Robert Weles and Claire Spgel.Qote, Although stressed pensions have risen dramatically in the LAPD during the last five years, they are rare in many other major law enforcement agencies outside of California. So no one else does this, and it's weird. Only LAPD cops I getting these because they just don't want to don't want to do the job. I thought like the biggest department in the country, the best at institutional corruption, like arguably between them and their own shheriff's department give it a way out to cash out early. They f ye they're going to take it. The them just steal all their overtime like they normally. Absolutely. I consider this probably a net benefit, you know? Yeah. Like let's get these dudes off the fucking streets. I support this. You know who else we should get off the streets, Joe Who's that robbery The sponsors of this podcast, all of whom are walk in the streets, I don't know. This is George Severres and Sam Tagart from Stradio Lab. Okay, picture it. Your apartment after a Saturday workout, the gym bag, the couch, maybe even the car. Miam, it's a full novella of odors and not the glamorous kind. That's where Fabriz comes in. Boost, spray, spritz, plug, or clip. It doesn't just mask odors, it fights them, honey. Want long lasting scent you can control? Try Fabrie pllug, scent booster Tod. With the adjustable intensity dial, you can control the scent to match your mood Plus, thanks to its fade defei technology, your home stays first day fresh for up to fifty days. Need a quick car rescue? Cip a fabrize car vent clip and map your ride to freshness. 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Ultimately, psychiatrist John Hoockman concluded that Ferman was not legitimately disabled by his work. wrote, There is some suggestion here that the patient was trying to feign the presence of severe psychopathology. This suggests a conscious attempt to look bad at an exaggeration of problems. In a presentation to the pension board, he noted that Ferman had failed a standard psychological test as well. The board voted six to zero to deny Mark's disability, pension Nice. You have to go steal OT and backu up vacation days like a normal LAPD officer. That's right. You have to be a corrupt lazy bastard the normal copway The fact that Market completely invented his combat experiences and wasn't caught at the time But the pension board did note that police records found no complaints of excessive force had been filed against Furman. If he were dangerously unhinged, the argument went, he probably would have fucked somebody up by now. I don't know if that's the best way to go about this. is the LAPD, but that's how they do it. I would expect nothing less from the LAPD to be fair. like Well it was really insane. He would have murdered someone by now We have a ton of cops who have, trust us. We know what the murder cops look like. and we keep them on the job too. We would promote him. Yeah. He'd be chief by now. So Mark doesn't take this denial lying down though. He appealed to a county judge, which made his court records public, which is why we know all of this now In September of nineteen eighty three, the judge upheld the board's ruling, and Mark Furman's brief break for the artistic life was over He'd either have to quit the LAPD and find a real job or go back to work, probably as something of a pariah within the department Mmm Mark's not willing to get a real job, so he goes back to the LAPD, and sure enough, he spends most of his first year back on active duty wriding a desk. Now I don't have a lot of detail on this period of time in his life, but it's interesting to me It's just eight months before he gets back to active duty work as a patrolman in May of nineteen eighty four. And this is interesting because you would assume after having tried to get out and like saying all this bullshit, he would be kind of unpopular and people would be making fun of him I think he's actually like really charming and charismatic within sort of an organization like this because he seems to have friends in the department He gets his gun and patrol route back pretty quickly And in short order, he's actually assigned to a better location. He gets sent to West LA West Los Angeles is the wealthiest part of town and thus the easiest beat to walk, right? Like a lot less of the crime and gang stuff that Mark was clearly scared by. And despite Mark's claims that he suffered from uncontrollable bloodlust, he excelled at working in West LA, where tact and charm were significantly more valuable than violence, mayaybe suggest that he was never actually all that violent of a guy. The fact that he does really well once there's a job where he could just be charming to other white people, He suddenly is a good cop. like quote unquote, right?. And if he was, you know handicapped by an uncontrollable urge to savage every single person he ever met Yeah. Wouldn't he want to just ride the desk instead Yeah rather than you're back out on patrol. Wh does he want to be back in the street. Like you had it m, dude, justust file payack. You get paid the same amount of money U So again, I think he's lying about being this like violent maniac. As Brian Bentley, a black police officer who was Furman's partner during this period, told a journalist, In West LA, you can't even yell at people. There are movie stars who know the president of the United States and they write everyone they can. Basically like Mark was really great at like being a cop who has to interact with celebrities sometimes, you know Um I know from personal experience that's a slight exaggeration, but the basic point is pretty sound. onnce Firman moves to an area where he's in no real danger, he seems to like being a cop. and his semiiannual evaluations back this up He gets positive reviews from his superiors in August of nineteen eighty seven. He's described by one as highly motivated and having a bias for action He was described somewhat differently by civilians who encountered him at the time Natalie Singer met Mark and his partner at the during this period in a hospital emergency room in nineteen eighty seven She claims that he told her the only good in word is a dead in word. So crab not Great dear. Yeaheeah And knowing him he just brings it up. likeike, hey, by the way, thatays she says it Yeah. Now. And actually kind of how Mark says it. because in his book Murder in Brentwood, he does kind of deny this, but he gives a very different story of his relationship with this woman.ote I met Natalie Singer in nineteen eighty seven because my partner was dating her roommate. I can't recall exact incidents, but I won't say we didn't argue. I do remember that we did not get along and I tried hard to irritate and anger her So he's likes he's saying, o, I wouldn't have said that. But I did say stuff just to piss her off. So his his defense is straight out of twenty twenty six like no, you don't understand. I was simply trolling. It was a bit. It was a bit. Yeah. Yeah That's yeah, fuck off Yeah So here's the thing and like, I don't know that either them are lying about the basic facts, by which I mean, I believe that Mark said what Natalie said that he said because we ha't recorded saying almost identical things I also believe that Mark when Mark said that like, well, I would often just say shit to piss her off. I think that's true. and I think he might have said that he might have said racist shit just to piss her off. I think his motivation in that might have been just to troll her, which doesn't make it not racist, right Right. I believe every side of the story simultaneously that's possible. Yeah. yeah. These are all and none of these are in conflict. No Another contact of Marx during this period, who would later be asked to testify about his racism was Roderick Hodge, who he arrested on drug charges also in nineteen eighty seven Hodge was acquitted of these charges and claims that the cop, Furman, who arrested him per time, as, quote, snarling from his patrol car, I told you we'd get you inwardd Right. So Hod says when this guy arrested me, he snarls this to me, and then I'm acquitted because they were bullshit charges Here's what Mark writes later about this interaction with Roderick I came to know Rogerick Hodge while working a gang narcotic unit as a uniformed officer in West Los Angeles from nineteen eighty five to nineteen eighty seven. Hodge was under investigation for dealing narcotics. I had many contacts with Hodge and arrested him twice. During both arrests, he made complaints about his handling by both arresting officers and wanted to speak with a sergeant. There was no merit to his charges, and he never claimed I used racial epithets He was just complaining in an attempt to draw attention away from his own arrests I don't know who who's telling the truth? I have no idea. The fact that Hodge was acquitted certainly makes me more inclined to take his sth maybe than Mark's here, but I don't actually know what happened Um That's the whole book, him just trying to explain all the an s shocking a lot of it because he says it a lot. He's used those wor that word a lot I'm going go on a limb here and suggest he might not be the most trustworthy motherfuck Rner mightight be a racist might be racist. It might be a horrific racist It is noteworthy that there are allegations of racism from Mark that also come from within the LAPD. One of Mark'sw office. Yeah. ye wild. How are you so racist that the LAPD is like whoa Wh, Great question, Joe. How? Let's let's explore that One of Mark's coworkers, officer James Purdy, married a Jewish woman around nineteen eighty five and would later testify that after his marriage, Mark Firman painted a swastika on his locker Now Oh my God. Mark denies this. and Mark is like, I would never have done anything that hateful. Oh my sw painted a swastika on an officer's you know, locker just because he married a Jewish one. I would never do anything like that. And then Mark continues with a line of argument that's almost like crafted in a lab to make me doubt him. But Perie was hardly popular in West LA. There were so many people who either didn't care for him or flat out couldn't stand him that it would be difficult to speculate who might have defaced his locker if that incident ever really occurred. The whole apartment wanted to paint a swastika on that guy's locker. Why do you think it was me Paper copps were lining up to paint a swastika on this guy's locker And the fact that when the swastika was painted on his locker, the cop in quest was like, this had to be firmin me that there was like a chain of events that led to the point where someone looked at him' like, that's a cop who would paint a swast gun toother his locker. You know what I'm saying? How many things did he do to get there The fact that this guy defaulted to assuming it was Furman, if that's what he did, right? Right says almost more than like if we knew for a fact, Furman had painted the swastika. people were like it had to have been him. It literally has to have been him, right Yeah that the other cop is like Yeah, this has Furman written all over. Yeah It sounds like Mark. Yeah, it sounds like Mark It's one of those things. like it's such a like saying, oh, I would never have like done something that bad. but also this guy sucks that almost anyone could have done it. So like why is he blaming me? It's such perfect bully logic And I think that's the correct comparison to draw, like a high school bully. If you want to understand the social role that Mark Ferman held in the LAPD hierarchy by the late nineteen eighties, like the mid to late eighties, he is like a kind of popular bully popular specifically with like the cool kids in the LAPD who are like the white guy officers, right? Like thats kind of seems to be his position in the West LA department. He's like, you know, and again, he's obviously capable of being charming when he wants to be and being likeable when he wants to be It's also worth noting that as comfortable as he is with racism and as like natural as it is for him to use racism in humor and slurs in humor I think It's largely because he likes the edgy trolling, because Mark is at least capable of forming genuine friendships and working well with non white officers, right Which makes me think again, he's capable of viewing individuals as people. He's obviously racist But the racism also comes out not just the racism is not coming out. u uncontrollably, he lets his racism out when he thinks it's funny and will be socially beneficial. And he's more than capable of like not letting it out when he either is with like a black or Hispanic officer that he gets along with, or that he recognizes as popular and that he's doesn't want to be like un pool around, right? Like he's able to do that. He's able to calculate when he lets the racism out So we have like another classic example of some dickhead racist troll deploying racism as something is a barb. Yeah slowly over time, simply becoming a racist Right Yeah Robert, where we heard this abillility. Tale is alost time Um, So when the OJ. Simpson trial came out and like the recordings of Mark being a racist that we'll talk about later came out, several of his former partners who were black and Hispanic men were brought forward by the LAPD to talk about the fact that, oh no, Mark wasn't a racist, and they all expressed seemingly genuine sentiment that Mark had not been racist around them These guys are all cops so I w't say I believe them entirely, but I could also see individual guys not having had that experience with Maret for the reasons that I just explained. Um And again, racism's a thing for Mark, but it's not the only thing. Social standing and comfort at work matters, and he's capable of like taking people as individuals and forming relationships with them based on that, especially if it's advantageous to his social standing One of his first partners was Roberto Alanz, a Hispanic officer who said that Ferman exemplified exactly what a police officer ought to be. We take it to the bad guys, and Mark was very good at it However, it's just as clear to me that in the normal course of daily life, dealing with people he saw as civilians and not colleagues, Mark defaulted to violence and to bigotry for the New York Times From nineteen eighty four to nineteen ninety, at least half a dozen complaints were made against mister Furman, including several contending that he threatened or beat suspects, but most of them were ruled groundless by the department for lack of independent witnesses. In nineteen eighty four, he lost a day off for seizing a pedestrian's wrists, and in nineteen eighty six, he received a one day suspension for leaving an improper remark on a motorist's windshield So again, when did he write on someone's wit? I wish I'd found out. I could not find anywhere. I did look, but I didn't find like that specified anywhere but I You want to keep because when the tapes that include him claim talk about all the crimes he pretended to have committed or claimed to have committed, the LAPD will be like, well, he was lying, we didn't find any the evidence. that's Braggadosceio. Some of it certainly was But also, every time he got like accused of a violent crime, it usually got ignored because there were no independent witnesses, which means in my head, Mark probably just beat someone up and it was his word versus that guy and Mark was a cop Right Yeah because we do know he did beat some people. He got in trouble for it several times, whichich means I assume a lot of these other cases were just, yeah, the LAPD was able to ignore it.. Anyway. It's not like a cop gets caught beating someone the first time You know, onnce they start fucking people up, it's because they've built up been doing it all time, you know, that they you know they can get away with it. They their bros, their coworkers are going to lie for them They know the department's internal investigations is never going to find them. Yep. you know They're immune. and Part of what has given Mark that sense of impunity is experience. and a lot of his experience is in being bigoted against female LAPD officers. And I want to quote again from that New York Times article The most serious blemish on Mr. Furman's work in the West Los Angeles Division was the hostile views he sometimes expressed about minorities and women His performance evaluation in August of nineteen eighty five, which was made available to the New York Times by a member of the Simpson Defense, noted, he is outspoken and critical in his perception of the department's application of affirmative action. He has been counseled to leave his personal feelings at home and to make every effort to adhere to the affirmative action guidelines and That says a little bit right there. And I think the first most important thing for me to note as a result of that is that while all this comes out during the trial because the OJ. Simpson defense team needs to paint Fermman as a particularly toxic racist officer That's not true Mark is toxic and racist, but his racism and sexism are pretty normal among his colleagues OneAPD officer during this period told the Times that when he was assigned to West LA, he was warned there are a bunch of old white guys who hate blacks and women at West LA. That's the department that Mark is transferred to because he's a racist and a bigot. You know, like And a lot of mid eighties, off course he's a misogynist Like this isn't like a defense of Furman if anybody's confused, like It would be really weird if there was a cop in nineteen eighty five It was like, No, I would love to work with a woman cop That guy doesn't exist And the reason this is relevant is not that like, and so that makes it okay that he was a normal level of racist for the LAPD kind of. It just means that like the defense seriously and don't take The LAPD seriously when they try to position Mark as a particular outlier, Mark's a normal cop and a normal detective. And that race rooms normal You know, like that's the thing to take out of this Yeah, that's the problem, right? Like no, he is just indicative of the LAPD as a whole. And he he's not when I say normal, doesn't mean every cop says the same shit because he does stand out sometimes, but what I mean is that evenven evenven though he was noted as like, oh, Mark is more of a bigot than a lot of other guysays. speaks out more. no one noted and that's crazy that a cop would say this. Nobody fired him. Nobody didn't want to work with him. He was like maintained his position in the LAPD because it just wasn't that weird that he was that kind of guy Yeah, you just stuck out. Exactly. nineteen eighty five pererformance evaluation of Marks continued He was also counseled by this raiding liieutenant and captain regarding his very strong expression of his personal views regarding women and minorities in police work. He was not receptive. He stated he felt as an American citizen, he had a right to express his views Of course. This isn't about me being a racist, Robert. it's about freedom. Spech. aboutout my freedom to be a racist. Yeah, exactly. By way of defending Mark, his supervisor from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety four, Gary Fullerton, told the New York Times that Furman joined a basketball league made up largely of black LEPD officers who had to meet up at six thirty AM and was like Who would do that if they were racist The Times talked to one of these players, Sergeant Ed Palmer, who is a black officer, and told them that he saw no signs of racism from Fermman in their basketball games. If you really hate African Americans, why would you get up at five hundred forty to play basketball with me And like, I don't know, man, but racist do all sorts of crazy shit, dude It's like, you know that ike you actually do know that E. Yeah, and again, these are only dudes who are cops as well Yeah exactly because they' this is the classic us versus them of American policing where like yeah, yes, he's a racist, but he's totally fine to hang out black people who are also cops. That's right. And all of these accounts are coming out during the trial when Mark when the tri it's become clear that the trial hinges largely on whether or not Mark's a racist. And so like the LAPD gets everyone they can who's not white in the department to say something nice about Mark and every woman that they can Um fact leads to a lot of like seesaw moments when you're reading about Furman, particularly during the Simpson trial because you'll read like one series of quotes about how this is these allegations of awful things he said, and then you'll read a very heartfelt quote about someone saying something nice about Mark U And this is all a result of a coordinated campaign within the LAPD, you know, in order to kind of buttress Mark's reputation because he was sort of standing in for the department at that point One person who definitely saw the racist side of Mark was Laura Hart McKinney, a screenwriter, who in the spring of nineteen eighty five, got interested in writing a movie about female cops. So she starts interviewing several real LAPD officers for like texture and research purposes. McKinney's noted as being like a pretty dedicated researcher when she like lived as a homeless person in Santa Monica for like a week, I think to like research a screenplay at one point. U Okay. And so she's like really talks to a lot of people. And one of the people she meets is Mark Furman. They like meet kind of casually earlier that year and become friends. And so she starts sitting out and like taping Mark talking about his experiences on the job. And McKinney would ultimately interview Mark several times between nineteen eighty five and nineteen ninety four And depending on who you read, McKinney is either, again, a very diligent screenwriter trying to do research to do the best work she can or basically a hack who like can't quite make it and you know, is largely