TRENTON CHARGES 2 TROOPERS WITH FALSIFYING RACE OF
DRIVERS

TRENTON -- In the first official sign that the New Jersey State Police may
have illegally singled out black and Hispanic motorists, the Attorney
General Monday announced the indictments of two troopers accused of
falsifying documents to make it appear that some of the black motorists
they had stopped were white.

Troopers John Hogan and James Kenna, who shot three unarmed men during a
traffic stop last April and are awaiting a grand jury's ruling on possible
criminal charges, will now face prosecution on 19 misdemeanor charges each
for falsifying records and conducting illegal searches.

Attorney General Peter Verniero said that after the shooting, his
investigators began an inquiry into the troopers' traffic stops on the New
Jersey Turnpike. The investigators quickly noticed a disturbing pattern:
the license plate numbers reported by the officers did not correspond with
the cars owned by the motorists they had stopped.

After reviewing the logs of 164 troopers in the Cranbury and Moorestown
barracks in southern and central New Jersey, investigators found some
troopers routinely falsified the race of drivers they stopped. As many as
10 other troopers could face criminal charges, a law enforcement official
said.

Two state police supervisors said it was common practice for troopers on
the turnpike to jot down the license plate number of white motorists who
were not stopped and use them on the reports of blacks who were pulled
over. Officers called the tactic "ghosting."

Although Verniero did not use the term racial profiling, his assistant,
James Gerrow Jr., was more direct. Gerrow said that after conducting
extensive interviews with motorists who had been pulled over by the state
police, prosecutors decided that the racial misidentification was part of a
deliberate plan to conceal the troopers' actions.

"This was not an omission on their part, or a mistake," he said. "This was
an intentional misrepresentation as to the racial characteristics of the
individuals they stopped."

When asked whether the troopers were acting to cover up racial profiling,
Gerrow said, "That would be a good way to characterize it."

Verniero's nomination to the State Supreme Court has faced opposition from
civil rights leaders and legal experts who argue that he has been slow to
respond to discrimination charges against the state police.

But by charging the two troopers yesterday, the administration of Gov.
Christine Todd Whitman signaled that it is inching toward an admission that
its troopers have engaged in racial profiling to curb drug trafficking.

"The practices alleged are of particular concern because they may evidence
conduct consistent with racial profiling," Verniero said.

The announcement of the indictments today came as the clamor over racial
profiling escalated. The Black and Latino Caucus of the State Legislature
is to hold its next public hearing on Tuesday in Newark, and at least a
dozen motorists and former troopers are expected to testify about
discrimination. On Friday, civil rights leaders have scheduled a march to
commemorate the one-year anniversary of the shooting involving Troopers
Kenna and Hogan.

This week the Attorney General is also expected to release the preliminary
findings of his review of the state police, and, according to two state
officials, he may also announce that he is dropping his appeal of a 1996
Gloucester County judge's ruling that the state police had engaged in
racial profiling.

But Verniero dismissed the suggestion that the timing of the announcement
was politically motivated.

"Absolutely not," he said at a news conference. "And I'm not going to
dignify that with further comment.

Governor Whitman did not attend today's press briefing or issue a public
statement.

For decades, black and Latino motorists have complained that state troopers
have subjected them to traffic stops and illegal searches for no reason
other than the color of their skin. The allegations received more attention
last April, when Troopers Kenna and Hogan fired at three unarmed men, two
black and one Hispanic, during a traffic stop and wounded them 11 times.
The officers said at the time that they shot in self-defense because the
van was backing toward them. Their lawyer, Robert Galantucci, did not
return repeated calls for comment today.