CLINTON AIDE STANDS BY RACIAL PROFILING CLAIM

A senior White House staff member said yesterday that he believes he was
the victim of racial profiling by Montgomery County police and released a
statement detailing a recent traffic stop that he said left him and his
wife "embarrassed, humiliated and afraid for our lives."

"Until that moment, we had an intellectual understanding of the bogus
crime, 'Driving While Black,' " said the statement issued by presidential
personnel director Bob J. Nash and his wife. "But, in a few terrifying
moments, we felt it more deeply and more personally than any words could
ever convey."

Montgomery Police Chief Charles A. Moose, who defended his officers'
conduct during a dicussion of the incident on a radio program Tuesday,
accused Nash of using his White House position to publicize the Sept. 6
incident though he has not filed a formal complaint.

"We didn't have a clue as to who was in the car," Moose, who like Nash and
his wife, is black, said in an interview last night. "In order to profile,
you have to know who's in the car."

Moose said police were following standard procedure for a felony traffic
stop and that he hoped the matter would soon be over. "We don't have
animosity toward Mr. Nash," Moose said. "We don't want to get into a fight
with the White House."

Nash and his wife, Janis F. Kearney, a special assistant to the president
and a presidential historian, were stopped on Georgia Avenue in Silver
Spring around 10 p.m. Sept. 6 because police believed their sport utility
vehicle matched the description of one stolen about 45 minutes earlier,
police said.

Nash and Kearney were both told to get out of their vehicle and were
handcuffed and patted down, police said.

Nash and Kearney said in their statement that they didn't understand why
they were handcuffed and or why police who approached had their weapons drawn.

Although Nash and police, including Moose, have discussed the incident,
Nash said yesterday he still believes that police abused their authority.

He said the officers should have realized when they flooded lights onto his
vehicle that he was too tall (5 feet 11 inches) and dark-skinned to match
the initial description of the suspect -- a 5-foot-tall, light-skinned
African American man.

Moose said officers were profiling the vehicle, not the driver, when they
stopped Nash. Nash was driving a 1997 blue Infiniti SUV with temporary
tags. Police said the vehicle reported stolen was a 1998 black Infiniti SUV
with temporary tags.

Moose said the officers drew their guns because they had been told the
carjacking suspect was armed. He said Nash and Kearney were handcuffed so
that police could direct their attention to the car, to determine if
someone was hiding in it.

"That's police policy and he [Nash] will never understand it unless he
joins the police department," Moose said. "Why does it have to be
questioned because of who he is?"

Moose also said crime victims often give sketchy descriptions of their
attacker. "It's extremely difficult to judge height," he said, and as for
complexion, "What's the definition of light-skinned? . . . I know African
Americans who make me look light-skinned and I know African Americans who
make me look darker."

Nash's traffic stop occurred just a few days after police had begun using
hand-held computers to record demographic information on all motorists they
stop. The new tracking system is part of an agreement that settled a
three-year civil rights probe of the department.

The Justice Department probe -- prompted by more than 300 reports of
alleged police brutality forwarded by the local NAACP chapter -- found no
evidence of brutality. However, an analysis of data showed county officers
issued 21 percent of all traffic tickets to African Americans, who account
for less than 15 percent of the county's population.

Nash and Kearney said in their statement that they support putting more
officers on the street. They said they didn't feel that they were entitled
to special treatment because of their White House positions, but that they
didn't want "any other innocent poeple to have to go through what we went
through."