‘Racial Profiling’ Is Acknowledged

The New Jersey attorney general’s office acknowledged that some state troopers have engaged in “racial profiling” in pulling over motorists. Complaints that the State Police target blacks and Latinos along the heavily traveled New Jersey Turnpike are “real, not imagined,” according to a report issued by the agency. At the same time, Atty. Gen. Peter Verniero said the state is dropping its appeal of a 1996 court ruling that troopers demonstrated racial bias in making arrests along the turnpike. The report came one day after two troopers were indicted on charges they falsified reports to make it appear that some of the black motorists they pulled over were white.