RENO CALLS ON POLICE TO DEAL WITH 'PROFILING' INCIDENTS

* The attorney general says charges of searching drivers based on race must
be addressed to determine how widespread the practice is

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Janet Reno made an impassioned plea Thursday
for local police and other law enforcement officials to deal with citizen
complaints about searches based on "racial profiles."

"We can't duck this issue," Reno said, adding that the Justice Department
has had "a number of investigations under way" of specific cases, trying to
determine whether police are violating individual rights by targeting people
based on their race.

While recognizing organized police opposition to such inquiries, Reno said
"hard facts" were needed to determine whether the practice is widespread.
"And let's, where we see the problem, do something about it," she said.

A proposal to require a national study of why police stop and search drivers
died in Congress last year but will be taken up again.

Reno said at her weekly news briefing that some police departments, through
training and other techniques, were trying to make officers more sensitive
to minorities' concerns.

On a recent visit to San Diego, she said, she learned that motorcycle
officers who stop motorists for traffic infractions are encoding racial data
on hand-held computers as part of a community study.

"They're not compiling specific case information," she said. "They're
compiling numbers to see if there is an unwarranted skewing that would
indicate an inappropriate reliance on a racial profile. I think that speaks
volumes for what police can do in other ways to, number one, identify the
scope of the problem, and number two, to take steps to correct it."

The House passed a bill last year sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr.,
D-Mich., a leading member of the Congressional Black Caucus, to require a
Justice Department study of racial and ethnic statistics on traffic stops by
state and local police.

Conyers told his colleagues, "There are virtually no African American
males - including congressmen, actors, athletes and office workers - who
have not been stopped at one time or another for an alleged traffic
violation, namely DWB - driving while black."

The House-passed bill, however, died in the Senate Judiciary Committee when
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chairman, refused to call hearings because of
opposition from the National Association of Police Organizations, the
National Troopers Coalition and other law enforcement groups.

Robert T. Scully, executive director of the national police association,
which represents 4,000 police unions, said Thursday he still opposed a
national study. Police would resent being asked to collect data on the race
or ethnic background of those they stop and often search, and many drivers
would probably balk at providing such information, he said.

Reno said, "We want police officers to bring the community together rather
than to divide it," but "it's very hard to get the police to get you to
trust them when you think you've been unfairly treated."

The Justice Department's goal, she said, is "good, effective policing that
can help make our communities safe (and help) most officers do their jobs
under extraordinarily difficult circumstances day in and day out."