JUSTICE DEPT. EYES RACIAL PROFILING

WASHINGTON (AP) The Justice Department's No. 2 official assured black and
Hispanic leaders from New Jersey on Tuesday that his agency is serious about
investigating whether state troopers stop motorists on the basis of skin
color.

Emphasizing the importance he gives the issue, Deputy Attorney General Eric
Holder told the group he believes New Jersey troopers stopped him two
decades ago because he is black.

New Jersey is one of several states where police have been accused of using
"racial profiling" to determine which cars to stop. Similar accusations have
popped up in Florida, Maryland, Connecticut and elsewhere along the
Interstate 95 corridor.

Holder spent more than an hour behind closed doors with members of the New
Jersey congressional delegation, the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey
and the state Legislature's Black and Latino Legislative Caucus.

The New Jersey officials praised Holder but said they believe the Justice
Department is taking too long with its inquiry.

"The answers that we wanted are still somewhat begging, because too much
time has elapsed," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. "The first time that
the Department of Justice was aware of this, definitely aware, was way back
in 1996. We are now in 1999 and we are still waiting for some action."

The Rev. Reginald Jackson, director of the Black Ministers Council, said
Holder promised at least a preliminary response "in a matter of months,
which is encouraging to us."

"These things take time, and we want to make sure that we're being fair to
both sides," Holder told reporters as he left the meeting. "We go into this
with an open mind. We don't presume there is in fact a problem. We're going
to look at the data we have, talk to people who are involved in this, and
then try to come up with an appropriate course of action."

In the private meeting, Holder told of being pulled over by State Police in
New Jersey when he was a Columbia University student in the 1970s, traveling
between New York and Atlantic City and sporting an Afro hair style.

Police stopped him, he told reporters, even though "I didn't think I was
doing anything wrong."

Later, Democratic Rep. Donald Payne, New Jersey's only black congressman,
said he too has encountered racial profiling by his state's troopers.

"I fit the profile driving a new car, coming up from the South. I was
stopped," he said.

Racial profiling is part of a larger question of how police treat
minorities, Payne said, adding that it has become "the number one topic of
discussion" among Congressional Black Caucus members.

State Police officials and Gov. Christie Whitman insist racial profiling is
not an accepted practice among New Jersey troopers.

Still, Whitman fired State Police Superintendent Carl Williams on March 1
following published remarks in which he said minorities were responsible for
most of the cocaine and marijuana traffic.

At a subcommittee hearing earlier Tuesday, Lautenberg urged Attorney General
Janet Reno to appoint a task force on racial profiling.

Reno said her department "is actively pursuing a review of the New Jersey
State Police and this issue. ... We want to do a thorough review and
complete it as soon as possible."