Politics

Senate Probes Racial Profiling In N.J.

March 19, 2001 / 11:29 AM EST / AP

Fearing a civil rights lawsuit from the U.S. Justice Department, a former state attorney general rushed to release his report that admitted New Jersey state troopers practiced racial profiling, a retired officer testified Monday.

Former Attorney General Peter G. Verniero and his deputies were well aware of several studies that showed minorities were stopped overwhelmingly more than white drivers by troopers, witnesses said on the first of four days of hearings before a Senate committee.

Several witnesses testified about a May 1997 meeting where Verniero heard detailed summaries of those state police audits.

But Verniero did not acknowledge racial profiling existed until an April, 1999 report. Now a state Supreme Court justice, Verniero said it was only after an April 1998 shooting of four minority men on the New Jersey Turnpike that the problem of racial profiling "crystalized in (his) mind."

Verniero released that report the day after announcing an indictment against the two troopers in the shooting. One week before the report, state police tried to give the attorney general updated information but were told it was too late, said Robert Dunlop, a retired state police lieutenant colonel.

Dunlop told the Senate committee that the attorney general faced a looming lawsuit from the Justice Department.

"They were about 16 hours ahead of Justice filing a complaint," Dunlop said.

Several other witnesses said state police routinely forwarded information about racial profiling and state police practices to Verniero's deputies.

In March 1999, Dunlop confronted First Assistant Attorney General Paul Zoubek about rumors that former state police Superintendent Carl Williams faced criminal charges for not turning over information.

Dunlop testified that he told Zoubek that Verniero was present in May 1997 when the figures were discussed.

"There was silence on the phone," Dunlop said. "I think this was the first time he was hearing about this."

An hour later Zoubek called back and told Dunlop, "That was not going to happen," in reference to the charges against Williams.

A New Jersey state trooper whose reports showed officers overwhelmingly stopped minority drivers also testified that he relayed information "up the chain of command" years before the state publicly admitted troopers were practicing racial profiling.

Verniero was included in several meetings where the issue was discussed, but the meetings focused on legal strategies and not attempts to correct the problem, Sgt. Thomas Gilbert told the Senate committee.

Former U.S. Attorney Michael Chertoff repeatedly asked Gilbert if Verniero's deputies were aware of those figures. Gilbert said he routinely forwarded that information and held nothing back.

"I believed I had an obligation to follow this information and pass it on up to my supervisors," Gilbert testified.

Gilbert began his investigation into trooper moto vehicle stops three years before the turnpike shooting.

In February 1997, he wrote to Williams: "At this point, we are in a very bad spot. The Justice Department has a very good understanding of how we operate and what type of numbers they can get their hands on to prove their position."

Minority motorists accounted for 89 percent of people searched by state troopers assigned to the Moorestown barracks from April to December in 1994 and again from July to December in 1996, according to Gilbert's memo. He studied records of 160 searches following traffic stops.

Another study of troopers at the Cranbury barracks in 1994 reportedly showed minorities accounted for 94 percent of all searches. A later study of trooper searches of suspects from July to December 1996 put that figure at 79 percent.

The committee wants to know why the state continued to appeal a 1996 Superior Court decision that allowed racial profiling as a defense while state police audits increasingly indicated that blacks and other minorities were targeted more often than whites for traffic stops.

Verniero will be called to answer allegations that his office did not cooperate in the early stages of an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.

Also under scrutiny is the decision to indict the two troopers on charges they falsified records at the same time a separate grand jury was investigating their involvement in the turnpike shooting.