MORE MINORITIES SEARCHED, N.J. OFFICIAL SAYS

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Nearly 100,000 pages of documents made public Monday
show that New Jersey state troopers stopped overwhelmingly disproportionate
numbers of minorities in searches for drugs, the state's attorney general says.

However, no evidence has been found that New Jersey worked to hide evidence
that troopers searched minority motorists based solely on the color of
their skin, he said.

The records were made available Monday at a reading room in the state's
Hughes Justice Complex.

New Jersey is committed to ending racial profiling, Gov. Christie Whitman
said in a statement Monday.

``While racial profiling did not begin in this state or under this
administration, history will show that the end of racial profiling in
American did indeed begin in New Jersey and under this administration,''
Whitman said.

The documents were expected to show that for more than a decade state
leaders knew about the large numbers of minorities being searched and tried
to balance that knowledge against legal drug-busting strategies -- some of
which received the blessing of the White House.

``Seven out of every 10 minority drivers (whose cars were searched) ...
there was nothing there. From a social policy point of view, that's a
disaster,'' Attorney General John J. Farmer Jr. told The Associated Press
on Sunday. ``Did we do enough soon enough? The answer is no or we wouldn't
be here today.''

In an April 1999 report, former Attorney General Peter Verniero admitted
minorities were targeted. That came a year after gunshots from two troopers
wounded three minority men during a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike
and sparked a furor over racial profiling.

But according to the new documents, Verniero and his predecessors were
aware for more than 10 years that minority drivers on the turnpike were
being stopped and searched more than whites.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said police can use race as a factor in motor
vehicle stops, Farmer said. The Justice Department included race in
profiles of traffickers said to be using the turnpike as a drug pipeline,
he said.

``What you'll see is an agency and a department struggling with these
uncertainties,'' he said. ``There was no overarching conspiracy to cover
this up. There was an attempt to understand it. There was an attempt to put
it into context.

``My hope is by getting all of this out, the people will understand, will
see the whole picture,'' he said.

Minority leaders praised Farmer for releasing the materials, but criticized
his conclusions.

``It saddens and discourages me. Those comments reek of insensitivity, just
trying to find cover for obvious acts of disobedience,'' said state
Democratic Assemblyman LeRoy Jones.

``We find this spin to be an affront and insult to the minority community
in this state,'' said Reginald Jackson, executive director of the Black
Ministers Council of New Jersey.

The attorney general announced in September his decision to release the
records after months of fighting in court to block their release. Defense
attorneys claimed the records would prove biased troopers tainted hundreds
of arrests.

Farmer said at the time he wanted to make the files available ``outside the
context of litigation.''

State police memos from 1990 will show that former Attorney General Robert
Del Tufo and then state police superintendent Col. Justin Dintino saw
reports showing overwhelming numbers of minorities were targeted, Farmer said.

An order to the troopers from Dintino demanded a halt to that, another
record being made public shows, Farmer said.

``They were tremendously ahead of their time,'' Farmer said. After an
internal investigation, four troopers were indicted and 20 others were
fired, he said.

This month, federal prosecutors agreed to pursue possible criminal charges
against the two troopers involved in the 1998 turnpike shooting.

That followed dismissal of charges against the troopers by a state judge,
whose ruling accused prosecutors of misconduct and a former state attorney
general of bowing to political pressure.