FOLLOWING UP OUSTED POLICE LEADER AWAITS DAY IN COURT

Oral arguments may be heard as early as Friday in the reverse
discrimination suit filed by Carl A. Williams, the former superintendent of
the New Jersey State Police who was ousted after making public comments
linking minority groups to drug crimes. Mr. Williams, who is white, was
forced to resign in February 1999, the day remarks he made in an interview
appeared in The Star-Ledger. In it, he said that some crimes were more
routinely committed by certain racial and ethic groups. He was quoted as
saying: "It would be naive to think race is not an issue in drug
trafficking," and "Two weeks ago, the president of the United States went
to Mexico to talk to the president of Mexico about drugs. He didn't go to
Ireland. He didn't go to England. Today, with this drug problem, the drug
problem is cocaine or marijuana. It is most likely a minority group that's
involved with that."

At the time, state troopers were being criticized for "racial profiling,"
pulling over citizens because of their race.

In his suit against the state, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and Peter G.
Verniero, the former attorney general and a current State Supreme Court
justice, Mr. Williams said that he was illegally discriminated against and
wrongfully dismissed. "He can only be fired for cause, with a notice and a
hearing," said Clifford L.

Van Syoc, Mr. Williams's lawyer.

Mr. Van Syoc said Mr. Williams could not be interviewed now, because of the
pending lawsuit. "I think they're still suffering, but they're coming out
of that," Mr. Van Syoc said of Mr. Williams and his wife, Eloise. "They'd
like to see our day in court. It will be very therapeutic."

[snip]