Pubdate: Thu, 04 Mar 1999 Source: Bergen Record (NJ) Copyright: 1999 Bergen Record Corp. Feedback: http://www.bergen.com/cgi-bin/feedback Website: http://www.bergen.com/ HEARINGS PROMISED TO COMBAT PROFILING MINORITY LEADERS STUDY TROOPER STOPS Promising to "bring to justice those who have been unjust," leading minority lawmakers Tuesday put forth a call for victims of racial bias on the state's highways. Members of the New Jersey Legislative Black and Latino Caucus say they are organizing a series of hearings across the state as open forums for anyone who knows of troopers who pick on motorists because of the color of their skin. Caucus members, speaking at a State House news conference two days after State Police Superintendent Carl A. Williams was fired for making racially insensitive remarks, said complaints from angry minority motorists are flooding their offices. "It's time the procrastination, denials, and silence on racial profiling came to an end," said Assemblyman Joseph Charles Jr., D-Jersey City, chairman of the caucus. "This is not hysteria, this is not paranoia, it is real." The hearings could begin in three to four weeks at several sites around the state and continue for up to four months. In the interim, the minority lawmakers promised to press their concerns on several other fronts. When President Clinton arrives in New Jersey today for a Democratic Party fund-raiser, they plan to ask him to speed up a three-year-old U.S. Department of Justice investigation of state police operations in New Jersey. They also said they would reintroduce legislation that would form a task force on racial profiling. And they pledged to defeat Attorney General Peter Verniero's nomination to the New Jersey Supreme Court unless Governor Whitman delays state Senate confirmation hearings that could begin as soon as March 18. "Before Mr. Verniero receives a promotion, we need to have some questions answered: What did he know about racial profiling in the state police he supposedly oversees? When did he know it? And what did he do about it?" said state Senator Wayne R. Bryant, D-Camden. Spokesmen for both Verniero and Whitman, however, said there was no chance the confirmation would be shelved. They said the minority lawmakers were trying to make political hay out of the state police controversy. "The caucus has heard anecdotes about racial profiling for the past 20 years and all of a sudden they're getting religion?" said Pete McDonough, Whitman's communications director. "They obviously want to make a Republican governor look bad for political purposes. "But what more can this governor do than she's already done? She's already put video cameras into patrol cars. She's already started the biggest internal investigation of the state police in 70 years." McDonough said that six recent New Jersey attorneys general, both Democrat and Republican, issued a statement Tuesday supporting a quick confirmation of Verniero. The one-paragraph memo, signed by James Zazzali, William Hyland, W. Cary Edwards, John Degnan, Robert J. Del Tufo, and Peter Perretti, urges lawmakers to "avoid politicization of the process." McDonough also chided caucus members for trumping up Clinton's alleged concerns about the racial profiling controversy. "It's just a grip and grin on the tarmac," he said. Even though the vast majority of New Jersey's 19 black and Hispanic lawmakers are Democrats, they denied any political motivation was behind their call for statewide hearings. They said they are coming forward now because recent events have made the time ripe, including the firing of Williams and the release of data from the first two months of 1997 showing that three in four people arrested on the New Jersey Turnpike were minorities. "The climate for ascertaining the truth has never been like this before," said Charles. The racial profiling issue has simmered for years in New Jersey and other states. It re-ignited in April 1998, when two state troopers patrolling the New Jersey Turnpike stopped a van carrying four minority passengers and then fired 11 shots into the van, injuring three of the passengers. The shooting is being investigated by a state grand jury. Three weeks ago, the state Attorney General's Office said it was beginning a comprehensive four-month review of all state police operations. Williams' dismissal earlier this week came after the 35-year veteran told a newspaper that minorities are more involved in cocaine and marijuana trafficking. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck