'JUST SAY NO' PLAN TARGETS CONSENT SEARCHES

The Black Ministers Council of New Jersey yesterday said it would launch a
statewide media campaign next month encouraging drivers to refuse police
requests to search their cars, if lawmakers don't vote to ban the practice.

The council's executive director, the Rev. Reginald Jackson, said the
publicity campaign against "consent searches" is part of a renewed effort
to stoke interest in ending racial profiling by police. The searches are a
much-criticized procedure at the heart of the racial profiling debate.

"We are going to say to the people of this state, whether you are black,
brown, white, yellow; red, whatever, (if) law enforcement (asks) to search
your car that you just say no," Jackson said. "Under no circumstances
should a citizen of this state consent to what is known as a consent search."

He and other African-American clergy, along with the head of the state
NAACP, made the announcement after meeting with Attorney General David
Samson and First Assistant Attorney General Peter Harvey.

The council said it pressed Samson to toss out regulations proposed by his
predecessor that would seal virtually all records on state troopers,
including videotapes they make while on patrol. If Samson doesn't, Jackson
said the council and the state NAACP would sue on grounds that the rules
violate state right-to-know laws.

Samson supports "properly supervised" consent searches, and is waiting
until public comment ends April 20 before he decides what to do about the
proposed rules on state police records, spokesman Chuck Davis said.

The ministers said if a pending bill banning consent searches isn't passed,
the "Just Say No" campaign would begin the first week of April with
newspaper, radio and television ads, mailings and messages from church
pulpits. The council is also assembling lawyers to represent citizens who
get in legal trouble by refusing to consent, Jackson said.

Statistics released last week show the number of consent searches dropped
drastically, but blacks made up a disproportionate amount of drivers
stopped and searched on the Turnpike.

A leader of the State Police troopers union said he had no problem with the
council's campaign. "It's the right of troopers to ask (to search a car)
and the right of citizens to refuse," said Kenneth McClelland, president of
the State Troopers Fraternal Association.

Jackson and NAACP President William Rutherford said they also urged Samson
and Harvey to obtain the names of dozens of State Police officers who
allegedly coached two former troopers to give false statements about a 1998
shooting on the New Jersey Turnpike that wounded three minority men. The
troopers, James Kenna and John Hogan, admitted to a judge in January they
had engaged in a pattern of racial profiling condoned by superiors and had
been coached on what to tell investigators.

Davis said the attorney general's investigation of the troopers' statements
is continuing. "There was a constructive exchange of views today, and
(Samson) looks forward to working with Reverend Jackson," Davis said.