ACTOR MAY SUE N.Y. COPS OVER WRONGFUL DRUG ARREST

Broadway actor Alton Fitzgerald White said Saturday that he was thinking of
suing New York City police after being arrested, strip-searched and
mistakenly held for hours.

In the award-winning musical "Ragtime," White plays Coalhouse Walker Jr., a
black man who is accosted by racist firemen as he drives his car through
turn-of-the-century New Rochelle, N.Y.

Police said late Friday that White, who is black, had been wrongfully
arrested outside the lobby of his Harlem apartment building and held for
five hours, causing him to miss that night's performance, after they
received a report of drug dealing in his building.

White said he suspected that he and the three men who were walking with him
were picked out because of their race. A police official said
strip-searching was routine procedure in all felony drug cases.

White said the wrongful arrest and detention had shaken his faith in the
justice system.

"When I was sitting in that jail cell, I realized that my perception about
good and justice would never be the same, just like Coalhouse, not to the
point of violence, but the naivete, it will never be the same," he said.

From Mercury News wire services