TROOPERS AWAIT NEW TRAFFIC STOP GUIDELINES

TRENTON- So put yourself in a car on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike,
watch the vehicles whizzing past, and then go out and arrest yourself a few
drug dealers.

How exactly are you supposed to find them?

The answer to the question is found in the state police's "criminal program."

Participation in the criminal program has been essential for highway patrol
troopers who want to advance. Until now, those who did it better than all
others were awarded Trooper of the Year.

Troopers doing routine traffic stops of speeders - and on toll roads
virtually everyone is speeding - can keep an experienced eye out for signs
of trouble.

But in February, former Superintendent Carl Williams also gave another hint
of how it can be done.

"Today with this drug problem, the problem is cocaine or marijuana. It is
most likely a minority group that's involved with that," Williams said.
"The president of the United States [recently] went to Mexico to talk to
the president of Mexico about drugs. He didn't go to Ireland. He didn't go
to England."

The remarks got Williams fired the same day they were published.

Greg Sanders, one of the 13 black troopers who have joined a discrimination
lawsuit against the state police, appeared before the Legislative Black and
Latino Caucus on Monday at a public hearing on the same matter.

Sanders said in his first evaluation on the force, he was given good marks
for his work in traffic law enforcement and other tasks.

But he was told he had to improve his participation in the "criminal program."

"I don't think there is any question today what the 'criminal program'
was," said Sanders.

Trooper Glynn Moore , also a part of the lawsuit, said it more bluntly: "I
was instructed to go out and look for minorities."

Chuck Davis, a spokesman for Attorney General John Farmer, said all road
troopers have been retrained to make it clear that race cannot be the basis
for stopping motorist.

The state police criminal program stands at the heart of a report from the
attorney general's office that was issued six months ago documenting the
use of race as a means of selecting which motorists to stop or search.

It proposed permanent changes to the agency's operations.

Troopers are to receive new written procedures and are to be trained in
what the changes are. And management would establish an "early warning
system," tracking patrol activity to alert them to troublesome patterns,
and explain to the troopers the kinds of problems the warning system was
designed to detect.

Troopers who know anything about any of this got it from reading
newspapers, according to Ed Lennon, president of the State Trooper
Fraternal association.

There have been no new written procedures, no explanation about early
warnings, no clear guidelines on what will get you in trouble and what will
not.

"We have no new information yet," Lennon said. "Troopers are standing by
waiting for the orders."

Lennon said the union has sought a meeting with Attorney General John
Farmer to discuss what is going on, to ask what will be happening, and
when. "We haven't gotten an answer yet."

Ask in July about the new procedures, Farmer's staff said work was proceeding.

As September begins, Davis said the new Standard Operating Procedures "have
not been finalized yet."