Behind the Bastards
Part One: Mark Fuhrman: The Most Racist Cop, or Merely Normal Racist Cop?
02 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: Who is Mark Fuhrman and why is he controversial?
Call Zone 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 do miss the lady being like, recording in progress. In progress. But I could just say it.
Have you thought that maybe she misses you?
Probably. Everybody misses me.
I never think that, James.
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Chapter 2: What were the early influences on Mark Fuhrman's life?
Not James. You're Joe. Joe Kasabian, our guest for today. Host of the Lions 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 to plug for us here? My newest gunpowder fantasy novel, The Highlands Burn, comes out May 29th. It'll probably be out by the time this episode comes out.
So, yeah, pick that up. It'll be available e-book, audio book, paperback, wherever you get your books.
Chapter 3: How did Mark Fuhrman's military service shape his views?
Awesome. Well, 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? Uh, cops? Yeah, cops, exactly. Joe, it worked. Okay, okay, okay. This is a better intro than I thought.
Chapter 4: What role did Mark Fuhrman play in the O.J. Simpson trial?
Great, great. 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 watch these episodes. But 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.
Have a moment of silence for a great man, Officer Mark Furman. 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.
Chapter 5: How did Mark Fuhrman's racism impact his career in the LAPD?
What's the point of life without Mark Furman? Without a really racist detective who's largely responsible for O.J. Simpson getting away with murder.
I think I'm going to like garden this weekend and like, you know, go outside, touch some grass and like not think about Mark Furman at all.
But for the next couple hours, I guess we're going to be thinking a lot about Mark Furman. To be fair, Sophie, that is something you're gonna have in common with Mark Furman.
He's also touching grass. Yeah, he is, he is, he is. Forever and ever. Fun fact.
Chapter 6: What were the key events leading to the LAPD Rampart scandal?
He tagged the week that we're recording this.
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 O.J. Simpson trial star Mark Furman.
And if you're not, if you didn't live through the O.J. trial like everybody else,
recording the podcast right now or if your memories have just faded oj simpson was really good at football and pretty good at being in fucking the naked guy i think it was that no was it airplane he was in a couple of movies he was an airplane right i don't know i was born in 88 so this is right about same on my line you know
Chapter 7: How did Mark Fuhrman's actions reflect systemic issues in law enforcement?
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. O.G. did it. We don't need to beat around the bush here, right? He wrote a book saying, what if I did it? He wrote a book saying, if I did it. But he didn't get convicted.
And if you ask people, why didn't he get convicted?
Chapter 8: What are the implications of Mark Fuhrman's legacy on policing today?
Obviously, there's a lot of different reasons.
If the glove doesn't fit.
Basically, everyone agrees that the reason why O.J. ultimately and there's a number, but the reason why O.J. 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 case.
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 O.J. Simpson case like a bombshell and is said to have played a major role on why O.J.
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 Furman. Are you excited, Joe? 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 did you have me on because kim kardashian's dad is involved in this that's right that's right it's the armenian angle i fucking knew it robert yes yes all i because i needed to have someone who was on oj's side and all armenians like inherently support oj simpson because of robert kardashian We have no choice.
One of Robert's favorite things to bring up constantly is when Ross from Friends played Robert Kardashian in that series.
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