My friend, 'Fuhrball' - Jerry Fuhrmann

By Craig HOXIE
HBPD Crime Scene Investigator


In the history of the Huntington Beach Police Department there have been thousands of employees that have passed through this proud organization. Of these thousands, there have probably been only a handful of people who could be described as characters. Jerry Fuhrmann was a character. Tragically, Jerry left us this past June 29th.

For almost 18 years, he and I worked together. During this time, we spent thousands of hours talking about his family and his journey through life.

In his early years he lived in many different places including Austria, Arizona, Illinois, and Riverside. His parents had divorced and eventually he, his mother, Dorothy, and brothers, Richard and Walter, settled in Hermosa Beach. They lived close to the Hermosa Beach Police Department and he was introduced to police work when his mother worked as a police matron. As part of her responsibilities, she was on-call 24 hours a day to respond to the jail to search and book females in custody.

Living close to the beach he and his two brothers were body surfers and around 1960 they went to work for Greg Noll Surfboards. Greg Noll was a famous big-wave rider and his shop backed up to the street they lived on. Richard worked as a finisher, Walt made fins and Jerry did repairs. They naturally took up surfing but the family didn't have much money so their first paychecks went to buying new surfboards. The economics of surf shops was a little different in those days as good surf was more important than a few dollars. Occasionally, when the surf was good they threw up the "CLOSED" sign and off they went.

Jerry did not brag about his surfing skills but Walt told me they were better than average surfers as they were able to surf every day. The brothers used to surf before school, run home, run through the shower, and still make it to school on time although they were dripping wet. As a surfer Jerry had good balance and was fearless. He still occasionally surfed into his late 50's.

On one surf trip Jerry, Walt, and a friend went to Mazatlan in their V.W. van. Remembering this was the early 1960's they didn't want to drink the local water or eat the food. While in Mexico they only drank Coca-Cola and brought their own food. However, they miscalculated their supplies and ended up eating about 10 meals consisting of only canned peaches. Walt said he couldn't look at a can of peaches for years.

He went away to college at Humboldt State to be a forest ranger and earned his B.S. degree in Game Management. However, there were not a lot of opportunities at that time and after he graduated, he returned home and turned his attention to becoming a police officer.

In 1966, he was hired as an officer in his hometown of Hermosa Beach (the other H.B.P.D.!). Officer safety was lacking in those days and mandatory police academies were in their infancy. The city needed cops on the street so Jerry went to the academy during the week and he drove a black and white on weekends. He worked at Hermosa Beach for 4 years. Besides working patrol he also acted as a driver for the chief. Who knows why the police chief of a small, quiet 1960's beach city with 23 officers would need a driver, but he had one. During this time, he and his 1st wife Janet, started a family and Jerry had his first two girls, Tami and Brandi. Tami later blessed Jerry with his two grandchildren.

In 1970, Jerry lateraled to the Eureka Police Department. He said it was a sleepy little town and the weather was dreary. The state paroled a lot of prisoners to the area and that kept him busy.

In 1975, he and Janet divorced and he decided to return to Southern California. His brother Walt was an officer at Newport Beach P.D. but they were not currently hiring. The City of Huntington Beach was undergoing tremendous growth during that time and the P.D. was rapidly expanding. Taking advantage of this opportunity he applied and was hired.

During his tenure as an officer he worked in patrol, C.S.I. and eventually as a motor cop. In February 1978, he responded to a burglary-just-occurred at the residence of a sheriff's deputy on Delaware Street near Ellis Avenue. The suspect was a 17-year-old male who was part of a large burglary ring. The suspect had been chased onto Carnaby Lane and was running northbound hopping fences. He went several houses north of the suspect's last location and thought he was well ahead of him. However, when he opened the gate to enter the backyard the suspect was standing there with two of the handguns he had just stolen. The suspect fired both guns at Jerry and fortunately one of the guns misfired. A round from the functioning gun struck him in the left hand almost severing his thumb. He doesn't know how he did it but he was able to use his severely wounded left hand to depress his radio to call for help while he held his Browning Hi-Power .45 in his right. The suspect eventually was captured after a huge shootout in a nearby lumberyard. After having his thumb re-attached, he was able to return to duty.

I think he found his true calling when he became a motor officer. He didn't mind writing tickets to those who earned them and he loved riding motorcycles. He was very fastidious about his gear. His motorcycle and boots were immaculate. One of his favorite details was working open container violations on P.C.H. during the summertime. He said in those days traffic didn't move on P.C.H. during peak hours due to the narrower highway and on-street parking. He was able to pull-alongside a vehicle, witness the violation, write the ticket on his gas tank, and then have the violator sign without ever having to get off his bike! After issuing the ticket he would pull up to the next vehicle in line and repeat the process.

During this time he owned a Catamaran and dirt bikes. He and fellow Motorcycle Officer John Hauser won at least one gold metal racing the Catamaran in the Police Olympics. He also liked to race his dirt bike and while racing up in Eureka he was involved in a bad crash. He broke his right leg but did not want to go into an emergency room in Eureka. In typical Jerry fashion he drove all the way back to Huntington Beach by laying his broken right leg across the R/F seat and using his left leg for the gas and brake.

Jerry and Nancy had been married for a short time when, in November 1981, Jerry almost died in an on-duty motorcycle accident. It was near the end of his P.M. shift and he was riding near Main Street and Palm Avenue when a drunk driver struck him head-on. He was thrown from his motor and landed in front of the mortuary. Due to severe head trauma, he was in a coma for 30 days and nearly lost his crushed left leg. His doctor wanted to amputate the lower portion of the leg but Nancy searched for and found a doctor who was able to save it. The doctor removed a piece of bone from his pelvis and used it to bridge together the two separated pieces of his femur. His injured leg was still shorter than the other but he was still able to walk. However, he was never quite the same due to the head trauma and problems with loss of memory. After five years of surgeries and working light-duty (when able) in Traffic A.I., the city finally pulled the plug in 1986 and medically retired him.

This was a crushing blow as he was not ready to retire. However, he was resurrected in 1987 when the department created the new civilian Field Service Officer position (Crime Scene Investigator) and he was the first official hire.

I first met Jerry when I was hired in May 1988 and we quickly became friends. When we weren't sharing stories we were working closely together at crime scenes ranging from petty thefts to homicides. I found him to be the most dedicated and hard-working person I have ever seen. When we received our monthly statistics he always handled the most calls, turned in the most recovered latent print lifts and elimination cards, and identified the most criminals. When it came to conducting a latent print exam at a crime scene he was a bulldog. At the opposite end he had difficulty working with D.N.A. He was from the old-school and he didn't understand the science involved. Since he couldn't ever see it he had a hard time believing it was there. I addressed this at major crime scenes by volunteering to do all the D.N.A. work and sketching and he handled the latent prints and photographs. C.S.I. can be very monotonous and strenuous work but we made the best of it and always had fun working together.

Most people did not know the Jerry I knew. After all, he did have a long, leathery face from decades of surfing and fishing, and he wasn't always smiling. He wasn't nicknamed "Eeyore" for nothing (and he relished it!). He not only wore his mood on his shoulder but he also wore it above his right shirt pocket. He had a couple of name badges "custom-made" which he wore alternately for years before a supervisor finally objected. He was ordered to never wear them again and after a long run "I.M. HAPPY" and "I.M. GRUMPY" were retired to the back of his locker. He also had a little fun with people during the O.J. trial. When he did wear his "J.D. FUHRMANN" name badge people would ask him if he was related to Mark Fuhrman. Of course, he always said he was and they were very impressed. However, they didn't notice Jerry had the extra "n" in his last name and we always got a good laugh out of it.

After a few years of working together, we became close friends with Parking Control Officer Sonia (Canales) Freeman. The three of us always got a cup together first thing in the morning and had lunch together. Jerry was a creature of habit when he found something he liked and he would never try anything new. For breakfast he would order a cup of hot tea and, if he wasn't feeling "fat", a donut. Of course his version of a cup of hot tea was hot water with the cup filled half-way with sugar, and then three quick dips of the tea bag. The shop owner Sue would see his unit pull up and start pouring the hot water and all that sugar. By the time he entered the shop his tea would be on the counter waiting for him. And, of course, he always paid with exact change.

For lunch we only ate at Pick Up Stix, Woody's, and with our friends at Cantamar. For 18 years when we ate at Stix (and Kung Pao before that) he never ordered anything except Cashew Chicken. At Woody's it was a B.L.T. on wheat, hold the T, extra crispy on the B, and a side scoop of cottage cheese. He sometimes mixed it up at Cantamar but it was still usually Beef Tacos, Beans, and Rice. One day I talked them into eating lunch at Mother's Health Foods even though I had never tried their menu. After a meal of something that tasted like bland cardboard I was never, ever again allowed to take him anywhere new.

Some of my other favorite memories include him trying to use a wool blanket to capture $10,000 in unbound bills dropped by two knucklehead bank robbers (there was a photo of him in action in one of the local papers), a July 4th when I was in a leg cast and on crutches with he and Sonia trying to get me from the P.D. to Smith School for lunch using his little Chevy Lumina C.S.I. Unit, and our never successful attempts to beat Mark Freeman and his band of ringers in the P.D. fishing tournaments we used to have in Newport Harbor (Sorry Mark :).

Some of his accomplishments while working C.S.I. were not even part of his job. During his down time, he became an expert at identifying and impounding vehicles with expired registration and false or stolen year tags. He wouldn't even bother with a vehicle with only expired registration as that was too easy. He was adept at recognizing homemade tags and even the colors and proper sequence of the years. Over the years, he impounded hundreds of these vehicles and generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and penalties for the city and state by catching these cheats.

It has been a few years but during the summers he used to stake-out Beach Boulevard and PCH for burglars breaking into beach-goers vehicles. His observations led to dozens of burglars going to jail. He had made friends with the managers at Huntington-By-The-Sea Mobile Home Park and they let him set up "The Perch" next to their car wash area. "The Perch" allowed him to view (with his binoculars) across the wetlands area towards the vehicles parked on Beach Boulevard. One of his squad mates was usually in the area and when something went down they were close enough to swoop in and make the arrest.

This cherry-patch of criminal activity eventually dried up after he submitted a suggestion to the city to post warning signs in the area. He won an award for this suggestion and was presented with a plaque and a $50.00 check from the city. Of course, after he received the award it still took the city a couple of years to post the signs when sidewalks were finally installed on Beach Boulevard.

As much as Jerry could be a good friend and a very productive employee it is fair to say he was also difficult to supervise. He was stubborn and he never knew the term "politically correct". I don't think he ever accepted his retirement as a police officer and he sometimes involved himself in calls outside his CSI duties. His radio procedure left something to be desired but I know he was mostly trying to be funny. One time he was unreadable on the radio as he was eating carrots and he said so on the air. After he was spoken to I asked him why he and he replied "I didn't want to choke!" HUH? What? (Visualize the commercial of the AFLAC Duck shaking his head after listening to Yogi Berra!).

In 1990, Nancy and Jerry where finally blessed with their own children (and his "second family") with the birth of Taylor and, in 1992, when the twins, Kevin and Kelsey, were born. He was excited to have children again but he was almost 50 years old when the twins were born. It was definitely more of a challenge for him but he persevered. He always told me how proud he was of all their accomplishments. He never hesitated acting the proud papa and told me how exceptional they were doing in school or in their many activities including ice skating, tennis, horse shows, softball, baseball, and even sewing. You may have noticed his vehicles had the personal license plate of "DAD AGIN" and the frame said "FINAL SCORE - GIRLS 4, BOYS 1".

Isn't it ironic that even though Jerry hasn't officially worked for the P.D. for over 1 year the department has not been able to replace him? The second round of testing is now in progress, and frankly, there is no way they can ever replace him.

We will always miss him and we will definitely never forget him.

Rest in Peace my friend, 'Fuhrball'  d