NYPD IS ACCUSED OF RACIAL PROFILING

Prejudice: Mayor Giuliani Calls The Report By Civil-rights Group
'Politicized.' Police Recruiting Also Was Criticized.

WASHINGTON - The New York Police Department widely uses improper
racial profiling to stop and question blacks and Hispanics,
contributing to turbulent racial tensions that can escalate into
"tragic and unnecessary" incidents like the police shooting of unarmed
Amadou Diallo, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found Friday.

New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani called the conclusion a "politicized
report that bears no relation to reality.'

The commission also questioned department training and recruitment of
black and Hispanic officers and recommended creation of an independent
office to investigate allegations of police wrongly using deadly force.

"The city of New York must maintain a work-class police force that
provides protection against illegal activities, including civil-rights
violations by its own officers, for all of its diverse populations,"
Commission Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry said, reading from the
report's summary.

"Everywhere, African-Americans were stopped far out of their
proportion in any of the communities policed," Berry added. "So were
Hispanics, but at somewhat reduced levels."

For example, the commission review of the NYPD's "stop-and-frisk"
tactics found that two years ago 51 percent of the people stopped and
searched in Staten Island were black, while the borough's population
is only 9 percent black.

Racial profiling - singling out suspects based solely on ethnicity or
skin color - has gained increased national attention in recent months
as investigations uncovered its frequent use at the Customs Department
and other law-enforcement agencies around the country. Experts say
such practices undermine police authority and reduce deterrence to
crime.

Evidence the commission gathered belied NYPD contentions that blacks
and Hispanics were stopped more frequently because they matched crime
victims' descriptions of perpetrators, Berry said.

"They simply stop who they think they should stop," she said. "The
NYPD needs to be careful not to engage in racial profiling of this
sort. ... It not only violates the law but undermines respect for the
police and can cause deadly altercations, as in the tragic and
unnecessary police shooting of Amadou Diallo."

Diallo was shot and killed outside his Bronx home Feb. 4, 1999. Police
fired 41 bullets at the unarmed man, hitting him 19 times. The four
officers involved - who said they thought Diallo was going for a
weapon - were acquitted of any crime earlier this year.

In an earlier rebuttal to a draft report, city officials contended the
commission's work was "shoddy" and relied too heavily on police
critics such as the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Before Giuliani dropped out of the U.S. Senate race, there were also
claims the probe was intended to embarrass the mayor and bolster the
candidacy of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.