"Fuhrman" Rhymes With "Sherman"

Hmmm...

Coincidence???

Maybe.  Maybe not.

If not...

I am assuming here that you all remember Mark Fuhrman from the OJ Simpson trial.  He was the handsome, intelligent detective from the LAPD who offered much convincing testimony as to the guilt of OJ.  I remember being so taken with him.  He was, like, this perfect man.  I used to watch him daily and hang on his every word.

And then he turned out to be a lying, son-of-a-bitch, racist evidence-planter.

Sound like any fictional character we know and love???

Chris Chulak and Ben McKenzie are intelligent and well-informed people.  I am sure they are aware of the Mark Fuhrman debacle and the lessons it has to teach us concerning those who are sworn to "serve and protect."  And they may very well have decided to have the character of Ben Sherman remind us of those lessons.  "Art imitating life."

I think Ben McKenzie would be especially amenable to this kind of story-line.  He seems to be a person who is passionate about justice in our society, a person who is aware of the dangers of people who arrogantly get caught up in their own power.  I believe he would be eager to remind people of these important lessons about human nature through the characters he portrays.

What got me thinking about this is the scene where Officer Ben is testifying to I.A. regarding the incident involving Sammy and Tammy.  He really, REALLY struck me -- in that moment -- as a Fuhrmanesque character.  Polite, intelligent, respectful, educated, well-spoken, calm, confident, perfectly attired.  It occurred to me that, perhaps, Ben McKenzie had been studying tapes of Mark Fuhrman's testimony in preparation for that scene.  Maybe I am taking it a little too far, but the resemblance Officer Ben bears to Mark Fuhrman in that scene is uncanny.  In my opinion, anyway.