RACIAL PROFILING CATCHES HEAT IN GEORGIA

MACON - The part of I-75 that snakes through Lamar County is short-just
about three miles of interstate-and easy to miss if a motorist isn't
checking signs.

Minority motorists, however, claim the Lamar County Sheriff's Department
pays far too much attention to them as they pass through that Middle Georgia
county.

Those motorists accuse the sheriff's department of profiling, a practice
used to spot suspected drug couriers, they say targets blacks and other
minorities for unwarranted stops and searches along the interstate. Their
claims now have drawn the attention of a federal judge and lately, the U.S.
Justice Department, according to court documents in Macon.

Earlier this year, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Wilbur D. Owens Jr.,
presiding over a drug case, ordered sheriff's officials to produce all
records, including videotapes, of 1998 traffic stops on that stretch of
interstate. U.S. v. Strowder, No. 5:98-CR-26 WO (M.D.Ga., March 9, 1999).

And briefs filed by the defendant's lawyer in that case say that late last
year, Justice Department officials began their own investigation into
allegations of racial profiling.

Lamar County Sheriff Larry Waller did not return a message seeking comment
but the Macon Telegraph has quoted him denying that his deputies use racial
profiling. In court filings, too, the government disputes the claim and says
the officer's motive in stopping a car isn't the issue in assessing the
reasonableness of a stop, provided
that a traffic violation has occurred.

ISSUE IN NEW JERSEY The practice has become a hot topic around the country.
Earlier this year, the governor of New Jersey acknowledged that the state
police had used racial profiling to select targets on the New Jersey
Turnpike. And in California, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit
June 3 against the California Highway
Patrol over claims by a Latino attorney of racial profiling.

The case that touched off the inquiries in Georgia was the Feb. 4, 1998,
arrest of Cedric Strowder and the videotape his defense lawyer, Debra G.
Gomez, obtained of the traffic stop.

Strowder, heading southbound on I-75, was stopped shortly after 11 p.m. by
Sgt. Danny Hooks and Deputy Chris Tenbrink of the Lamar Sheriff's
Department, according to an affidavit from a Georgia Bureau of Investigation
agent. The officers claimed the window tint on Strowder's 1984 Buick Le
Sabre violated the law and that Strowder was weaving.

The deputies, according to the government's briefs, contend that they
checked Strowder's license, examined him to see if he'd been drinking and,
when he acted extremely nervous, they asked to search his car. He consented,
they say. During the search, they alleged they found approximately two
kilograms of powder cocaine under the seat.

Strowder has pleaded not guilty to possession with intent to distribute
cocaine. If convicted, he faces eight to 10 years in prison.

According to court documents, he told authorities he did not know the drugs
were in his car. He claimed he had just done a favor for a friend, for whom
he'd traveled to a stranger's house to pick up clothes and stereo equipment.
There, he said, he gave a man named "Ty" his car keys to load the equipment
but didn't watch what was placed in the car.

For now, however, Strowder's case hinges on whether Gomez can successfully
argue that the drug evidence should be suppressed.

In a motion to suppress pending before Owens, Gomez argues that because the
original traffic stop was "pretextual and unlawful in nature," the drug
evidence should be tossed out.

Strowder had a clear view through his windows, Gomez writes, and the
videotape of the stop shows he wasn't weaving as the officers followed his
car on the interstate, even though he had to pass a large truck to pull over.

LAWYER: STOP PRETEXTUAL Gomez also contends in her brief that the video
contains evidence that shows the stop was pretextual, that Strowder was
pulled over because he was a young black man driving late at night, someone
the deputies believed might "comport with a drug courier profile."

As evidence of that, her brief says the videotape captured Deputy Tenbrink
telling his partner before stopping Strowder, "Keep your eye out ... we'll
stop him for something."

During a January hearing before Owens, Gomez presented the judge with
evidence of three similar stops of other minority motorists who claimed
similarly to have been singled out by the same deputies for no apparent
reason, stopped and searched on the interstate, all during a four-month
period in early 1998.

One of those motorists who submitted an affidavit was Willard Harper of
Moultrie, Ga.

Harper's affidavit says he was driving an elderly friend, Rena Harmon, from
Atlanta to Macon after dropping off the woman's son at the Atlanta airport,
when the same deputies pulled him over on I-75 March 2, 1998.

One deputy patted him down, then questioned him about where he had been and
where he was going, Harper states. "After I answered him, he kept
insinuating that I was very nervous and he then asked me twice about drugs
and weapons in the car," his affidavit says. "I told him, no it was just
very cold out there and dealing with police officers will make anyone nervous."

Harper agreed to let the deputies search his car and they found nothing
after going through the car, Harmon's bags and patting down the elderly
woman, his affidavit says. He got a courtesy warning ticket-for weaving.

Harper, who is black, says in an interview that he evidently fit a profile
to the deputies-a minority driving an old car in mint condition.

"It was terrible," he says. "It was unprofessional and it was wrong."

He wrote Sheriff Waller and Lamar County commissioners about his experience
but got no response.

Now, he says, he's considering filing suit. "When law enforcement thinks you
are guilty, they go to court," Harper says. "When you think they've done
wrong, the only way to stop it is to go to court."

In Strowder's case, Owens has not ruled on the motion to suppress, but was
concerned enough to order Lamar officials to turn over to the U.S.
Attorney's Office a year's worth of logs, arrest reports and audio and
videotapes of traffic stops on I-75.

"I am very happy with Judge Owens' order because he was willing to give us
the opportunity to see what the truth is," says Gomez.

'THREE-MILE NET' She likens the stretch of I-75 in Lamar County to a
"three-mile net." While that net might catch some sharks, or drug dealers,
"it is not fair to catch the dolphins and innocent people," she says.

"There are enough sharks out there that you can catch them legally," Gomez
insists.

U.S. Attorney Beverly Martin says her office can't discuss the Strowder case
because it is pending. Nor, she adds, can she discuss any ongoing investigation.

In briefs, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Calhoun and Barbara G. Parker
cite Whren v. U.S. 517 U.S. 806 (1996). They deny a racial motive in making
the stop and argue that what counts is whether a violation had occurred that
prompted the stop. In this case, they contend, it had.

But Gomez counters in a brief that Whren doesn't sanction officers "making
up" traffic violations to justify a stop but requires a legitimate violation.

Gomez will have access to the 1998 records Owens ordered Lamar County
officials to produce to use in her attempt to show a "pattern and practice"
of racial profiling.

Similar incidents, her brief contends, should be admissible in deciding the
motion to suppress because they show proof of plan, motive, intent and
absence of mistake or accident in the deputies' actions.

"These actions," she writes, "were no mistake or accident. These Deputies
have a clear pattern and practice established wherein they intend to stop
individuals based upon a drug courier profile and they either do so without
probable cause, or they fabricate probable cause."

Gomez says that since an article on Strowder's case appeared last week in
the Macon Telegraph, five people have called her to recount similar incidents.