POLICE SUE ABC FOR SLANDER

New Brunswick, N.J. (AP) Three police officers have sued ABC for $3
million, accusing the network of hiring blacks to drive around in an
expensive car breaking traffic laws and then accusing them of racism when
they stopped the car.

The officers were featured in a Nov. 27, 1996, episode of PrimeTime Live
called Driving While Black, which alleged the officers stopped the men only
because of their race, according to the suit.

The officers Louis Hornberger, Robert Tonkery and James Mennuti were
filmed on hidden camera stopping a MercedesBenz in October 1996 with three
black men inside, the lawsuit said.

The network hired the three men to drive around a drugplagued neighborhood
in Jamesburg, a predominantly white central New Jersey town, for several
days in the Mercedes, equipped with hidden camera, the suit said.

Hornberger said the car was stopped the third night after breaking several
traffic laws, including disobeying a traffic sign at a dangerous
intersection in front of the officers' car.

"Not too many kids drive $85,000 cars," Hornberger was quoted as saying in
Tuesday's edition of the StarLedger of Newark. "And when they came in,
they were doing everything they could to stand out. They wanted to be seen."

The young men even bought bottles of spring water and put them into brown
paper bags to look like they were carrying alcohol, Hornberger said.

ABC spokeswoman Eileen Murphy declined to comment.

However, in a March letter to the officers' lawyer, the network defended
the segment.

"The PrimeTime Live report accurately described the experience of these
three black youths who were stopped, ordered out of their car and subjected
to frisking and a search of the vehicle, without their consent, after
having done nothing more than drive into town in a relative's Mercedes for
a second night," wrote John W. Zucker, senior general attorney for ABC.

Hornberger said the driver gave the officers permission to search the car.
The lawsuit also accused the network of violating state wiretapping laws by
using the hidden camera.

ABC had to defend its reporting with hidden cameras earlier this year in a
lawsuit filed by the Food Lion supermarket chain. Earlier this year, a
North Carolina jury ordered ABC to pay Food Lion $5.5 million, saying the
network lied to get jobs for undercover reporters who then wore spy cameras
and hidden recorders in Food Lion stores.

The ABC report, also on PrimeTime Live, accused the grocery chain of
selling ratgnawed cheese and rotting meat.

A judge later reduced the award to $315,000. ABC is still appealing in that
case.