Pubdate: Sat, 04 Nov 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
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Section: Opinion
Bookmark: racial Issues http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm

THE MUDDLED PROFILING CASE

It is time for federal prosecutors to step in and take control of the New 
Jersey case in which two state police officers shot at four unarmed black 
and Hispanic men on the New Jersey Turnpike. The Justice Department 
announced yesterday that it is beginning an investigation. It should 
proceed quickly because the New Jersey attorney general's office is simply 
too politically tainted to provide justice for either the officers or the 
victims.

The case drew national attention to New Jersey's racial profiling, the 
practice of singling out minority motorists for drug searches and traffic 
stops based on their race and ethnicity. In the turnpike incident, four men 
traveling in a van were pulled over for a traffic stop by the troopers. Why 
the officers started shooting remains in dispute. In any case, three of the 
van's four occupants were wounded. Bullets remain lodged in the bodies of 
two of the victims.

A state grand jury indicted the two troopers, James Kenna and John Hogan, 
on charges of attempted murder and aggravated assault. But on Tuesday, 
Judge Andrew Smithson of State Superior Court threw out all the charges on 
grounds that state prosecutors had so prejudiced the grand jury as to 
render the indictment invalid. Gov. Christine Todd Whitman has said the 
state attorney general's office will appeal the decision. Even if the state 
loses the appeal, it can seek a new indictment from a new grand jury. But 
it seems unlikely that the shattered trust of minority communities can be 
mended by seeking a new indictment.

The state attorney general's office has a deeply troubling record on the 
issue of racial profiling. For years, the former attorney general, Peter 
Verniero, dismissed complaints and failed to address the problem even 
though his office had oversight responsibility for the state police. 
Internal documents now show that police commanders had evidence of racial 
profiling from 1996 and 1997, but that they tried to withhold some of the 
information from federal investigators. One memo indicates that Mr. 
Verniero was present at a meeting when such information was discussed.

However, when it came time to investigate the turnpike shooting, Mr. 
Verniero seemed to feel a need to take a tougher stand against racial 
profiling, perhaps because he was seeking appointment to the New Jersey 
Supreme Court. During the battle over his confirmation, the special deputy 
prosecutor he appointed announced a separate indictment of the two troopers 
on charges of falsifying official records. Mr. Verniero was subsequently 
confirmed by the State Senate to the court in May 1999.

The timing infuriated Judge Smithson, who said that a second indictment 
should not have been made public while the first grand jury was still 
working on the shooting case. He also criticized the prosecution's failure 
to give the grand jury complete instructions on the law regarding the use 
of deadly force by police officers. Judge Smithson noted "the powerful and 
intimidating forces driving the decisionmaking" of the attorney general's 
office, and called the timing "more a matter of political expediency" than 
of concern for the rights of the two defendants.

This questionable history makes it clear that the attorney general's office 
has no credibility on this case. The people of New Jersey deserve to have 
this critical case brought to trial in a just manner. At this stage, 
federal prosecutors may be best able to deliver that result.
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