FEDS THREATEN LAWSUIT AGAINST N.J.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP)-- The state, faced with the threat of a federal lawsuit
over alleged racial discrimination by its troopers, is seeking a settlement.

The Justice Department said it has found enough evidence of discrimination
to sue the New Jersey State Police. State Attorney General Peter Verniero
said Thursday his office intends to work out an agreement with federal
lawyers to avoid actual litigation.

The lawsuit threat came to Verniero's office Monday as he appeared before
the state Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the state police and the
practice of stopping or searching motorists based on race.

On Thursday, Verniero said he looked forward to working with the Justice
Department to ''ensure that New Jersey becomes a model for addressing this
important civil rights issue.''

Division of Civil Rights spokeswoman Christine DiBartolo said New Jersey's
response was what Justice Department officials sought. ''We are very
pleased that they have agreed to enter into negotiations with us,'' she said.

Federal laws approved in 1994 gave the Justice Department new authority to
investigate police practices and to file lawsuits against entire
departments if civil rights violations are detected.

Since the reforms were passed, settlements have resolved threats of such
lawsuits with police departments in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In both cases,
civilians were designated to monitor citizen complaints or to audit police
activity reports.

However, DiBartolo said nothing can be drawn from those cases with respect
to the negotiations with the 2,700-officer New Jersey State Police, the
largest police agency so far to face a lawsuit threat, and the first
statewide police force to be targeted by the Justice Department.

Verniero's office last week released a report that found officers in at
least two police barracks, Moorestown and Cranbury, engaged in racial
profiling.

A Justice Department lawyer told The New York Times that the federal
investigation mirrored that report.

''We had the focus also on the Moorestown and Cranbury stations, and that
certainly was the focus of many of the complaints of motorists,'' said the
lawyer, who was not identified in today's story.

The source also said the Justice Department had agreed that some of the
remedies suggested in Verniero's report were ''a starting point'' for
negotiations. Those include revising the procedure for traffic stops,
focusing on statewide drug enforcement strategy rather than pursuing
individual vehicles and making quarterly reports on the racial breakdown of
motorists who deal with state police.