RACIAL ATTITUDES IN JERSEY'S STATE POLICE

New Jersey's Governor, Christine Todd Whitman, did the right thing in
dismissing Col. Carl Williams as superintendent of the state police because
of comments he made in an interview with The Star-Ledger of Newark. Colonel
Williams had asserted that certain crimes were associated with certain
races, and he specifically linked minorities with drug trafficking. His
remarks betrayed pernicious racial stereotyping that cannot be allowed to
guide a police force that must deal fairly with all members of a diverse
society.

Beyond that, the comments provided new insight into the possibility that
racial profiling, or the tendency to stop drivers of certain races and skin
colors as potential lawbreakers, may be deeply rooted in the police agency.
Although Colonel Williams insisted in the Star-Ledger interview that racial
profiling would not be condoned, his comments associating crimes with
particular racial groups sent the opposite message.

Coming from a 35-year veteran who rose through the ranks to lead the
2,700-member force, the remarks suggested that such attitudes may be
endemic.

In appointing a successor to Colonel Williams, Mrs. Whitman needs to find
one who will make a personal commitment to root out all traces of racial
stereotyping in the state police and eliminate all individuals in command
positions who harbor such attitudes.

For years minority communities have complained that New Jersey troopers
target black and Hispanic drivers for unwarranted stops and searches in
trying to make drug arrests.

The charges, though denied by police officials, are the subject of multiple
investigations. A grand jury is looking into an incident in which troopers
fired on four unarmed minority men who were traveling in a van to a
basketball clinic last April, and both the State Attorney General's office
and the Federal Department of Justice's civil rights division are
investigating race-based traffic stops in New Jersey.

In 1996 a Gloucester County judge ruled that state troopers used illegal
profiling along the southern end of the New Jersey Turnpike. Evidence in
that case showed that while 13.5 percent of the motorists on that stretch of
highway were black, 46 percent of those stopped by the police were black.
More recent data collected by The Star-Ledger found that in the first two
months of 1997, fully 75 percent of the motorists arrested on the Turnpike
were minorities. Several former and current troopers have filed lawsuits
charging racial discrimination in the agency and alleging that racial
profiling is encouraged as a way to get arrest numbers up.

Anger at the situation has prompted some minority leaders to criticize
Attorney General Peter Verniero, who has recently been nominated by Governor
Whitman to the State Supreme Court, for failing to act forcefully on the
matter.

Mrs. Whitman can help ease tensions by making sure her next choice for
superintendent takes all steps required to restore public confidence in a
police force whose fair-mindedness is under challenge.