N.J. police often stop minorities

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Nearly 100,000 pages of documents made public yesterday show that New Jersey state troopers stopped overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers of minorities in searches for drugs, the state's attorney general says.

No evidence has been found that New Jersey worked to hide evidence that troopers searched minority motorists based solely on the color of their skin, he said.

The records were made available yesterday at a reading room in the state's Hughes Justice Complex.

New Jersey is committed to ending racial profiling, Gov. Christie Whitman said in a statement yesterday.

"While racial profiling did not begin in this state or under this administration, history will show that the end of racial profiling in American did indeed begin in New Jersey and under this administration," Whitman said.

The documents were expected to show that for more than a decade state leaders knew about the large numbers of minorities being searched and tried to balance that knowledge against legal drug-busting strategies - some of which received the blessing of the White House.

"Seven out of every 10 minority drivers (whose cars were searched) ... there was nothing there. From a social policy point of view, that's a disaster," Attorney General John Farmer Jr. told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Did we do enough soon enough? The answer is no or we wouldn't be here today."

In an April 1999 report, former Attorney General Peter Verniero admitted minorities were targeted. That came a year after gunshots from two troopers wounded three minority men during a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike and sparked a furor over racial profiling.

According to the new documents, Verniero and his predecessors were aware for more than 10 years that minority drivers on the turnpike were being stopped and searched more than whites.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said police can use race as a factor in motor vehicle stops, Farmer said.

The Justice Department included race in profiles of traffickers said to be using the turnpike as a drug pipeline, he said.