NEW JERSEY AND COPS - IMPERFECT TOGETHER

New Jersey's management of law enforcement continues to be a microcosm of
the screwed-up, politically correct world in which we live.

Just mix cops and race in the Garden State - and watch as stupidity reigns.

Remember, this is where a few years back, then-Gov. Christine Todd Whitman
threw police Superintendent Carl Williams under the bus because he said
that blacks and Hispanics played a leading role in the state's drug
trafficking problems. Missing at the time was any debate as to the basis of
his assertions. Talk about shooting the messenger.

And now, along comes Gov. James McGreevey with the nomination of Capt.
Joseph R. Fuentes to lead the agency.

But wait. Turns out that he wrote a nearly 50-page research paper three
years ago titled "Valor Scorned: The Disarming of Highway Drug Interdiction
in America," in which he defended none other than Carl Williams!

That's interesting, given that Fuentes is himself a minority and would be
the first Hispanic leader of the state cops.

In his paper, Fuentes said that "professional race baiters" were trying to
brand the entire department as racist. Now, with his nomination in peril,
he's soft-pedaling his earlier views and claiming the paper was "a work in
progress."

Too bad Fuentes didn't tough it out and stand his ground. But you really
can't blame him. In the Garden State, only the PC survive. And things were
about to get worse.

The state assembly is scheduled to vote on a measure that passed the
senate, called "The Deprivation of Civil Rights by Government Officials Bill."

Who, you ask, could possibly oppose a self-described "anti-racial profiling
bill," particularly when it passed the senate unanimously? Hopefully, the
answer is "everyone."

This proposed law states: "It is important to ensure that law enforcement
officers are prohibited from using racial characteristics or color, either
alone or in conjunction with other composite characteristics such as a
generalized vehicle description or the age of the driver or passengers, as
the basis for initiating an investigative stop."

What does that mean? Michael Mayden, the chief of police for the Township
of Berlin, N.J., summed up the police view:

"My officers could be dispatched to the scene of a robbery and, en route to
the scene, are advised by dispatchers that the perpetrator is a white male
in a blue Chevy. As our officers pull up to the scene, they see a blue
Chevy operated by a white male. Under this law, our officers are forbidden
from stopping the suspect."

And while I credit the chief for speaking honestly about this nonsense, I
can't help but notice that in his hypothetical case he uses a "white" guy
in a blue Chevy.

Heaven forbid we'd have use a person of color in that Chevy! It's gotten to
the point where you need to sanitize even your hypotheticals.

If police can't refer to skin color when they search for bad guys, can they
mention car color if the vehicle is anything but white?

And what about dress? No problem if you have a guy in khakis driving a
vanilla car, but what about man in "dark" trousers behind the wheel of a
"midnight"-shade vehicle?

The New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police opposed the bill - but
before the state legislature could drive law-enforcement in the state right
off the cliff, the attorney general issued a "clarifying opinion" at the
last minute that addressed the cops' complaints.

Thank goodness. In this state, it sometimes seems the only ones getting
cuffed are the cops.