CLINTON ORDERS FEDS TO COLLECT RACIAL DATA ON ROUTINE STOPS

WASHINGTON -- Taking aim at the controversial practice known as racial
profiling, President Clinton on Wednesday ordered federal police
agencies to gather statistics on the racial makeup of those they
target for traffic stops, border inspections and other routine searches.

The action had been strongly urged by civil rights leaders, who have
been complaining with increasing urgency that police officers
conducting traffic stops unfairly single out blacks and Hispanics.

Stepping further into the escalating, emotional controversy, Clinton
also threw his support behind a bill that would gather similar
statistics from state and local police. "We must stop the morally
indefensible, deeply corrosive practice of racial profiling," Clinton
said at a Justice Department conference on police-community relations.
"It is wrong, it is destructive, and it must stop."

Civil rights leaders were pleased at Clinton's recognition of an issue
they have long struggled to inject into public discourse. Rep. John
Conyers, D-Mich., sponsor of the bill Clinton endorsed Thursday, said
the support would give the legislation momentum.

"We have all heard stories of African- and Hispanic-Americans --
including many well-known actors, athletes, law-enforcement officers
and legislators -- who have been stopped for the traffic infraction
known as 'Driving While Black' or 'Driving While Brown,'" Conyers
said. "I welcome the president's support."

Ira Glasser, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union,
urged police groups to take note. The ACLU has sued several police
agencies for alleged race-based traffic stops.

"Now is the time for officials in law enforcement to stop denying that
the problem exists and start working on how to end the practice,"
Glasser said.

In South Carolina, the Highway Patrol just completed sensitivity
training for its nearly 1,000 troopers. All officers in 1998 attended
classes on dealing with minorities and various cultures, said Col.
Wesley Luther.

In Richland County, deputies have undergone cultural diversity and
conflict resolution classes since 1996. Many also have participated in
informal sessions to learn Spanish as the Hispanic population grows
throughout the state.

The matter is politically delicate for Clinton. He has made
crime-fighting a centerpiece of his presidency and has reaped
political rewards from his strong ties to police groups. But those
groups strongly oppose gathering racial data as demanded by the civil
rights leaders.

"It shortcuts meaningful dialogue between the police and the
community," Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of
Police, said Thursday. "If anything, it exacerbates the gulf."

Many police officers fear that any racial statistics regarding traffic
stops will be used against them. "There are probably about one million
traffic stops in a day," Pasco said. "If 100 are bad ones, that is one
ten-thousandth -- but I promise you those 100 would be the story."

Others questioned the significance of Clinton's action, as federal
agencies are responsible for a tiny fraction of the sort of traffic
stops that are of concern to civil rights groups. The vast majority of
such stops and searches are made by city police departments, state
highway patrols and county sheriff's offices.

"When was the last time the Secret Service pulled you over to give you
a speeding ticket, or a DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agent stopped
you for running a red light?" asked Richard J. Gallo, president of the
Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. "Those who manage police
agencies should be concerned about racial profiling, but federal
agencies don't do traffic stops."

Clinton, though, said he hopes the directive will set an example. The
police brutality trials of police officers in the Abner Louima and
Amadou Diallo cases in New York have prompted some recently to portray
police racism as the dark underside of the successful crackdown on
crime, and Clinton was at pains Wednesday to suggest otherwise.

"Racial profiling is in fact the opposite of good police work, where
actions are based on hard facts, not stereotypes," Clinton said. "As a
society, we don't have to choose between keeping safe and treating
people right, between enforcing the law and upholding civil rights. We
can do both."