ABSTRACT
Although the term “driving while black” had been coined by the early 1990s, the issue did not become part of the national dialogue until 1998 when three young, black, and Latino men driving on the New Jersey Turnpike were pulled over by the police, shot, and almost killed in a hail of bullets. The men were unarmed and completely innocent of any wrongdoing. This shocking incident, which made racial profiling an important issue in the 2000 presidential election, offers unique insight into how insidious and systemic racial profiling had become because, two years prior, a judge had ruled that racial profiling had become “at least a de facto” police policy on the state highway. After the shooting, internal investigations by the state government and the media revealed how the judge’s worst suspicions had been correct; the policy was not de facto but de jure. The Superintendent of Police, the State Attorney General, and the Governor were all fully aware that highway troopers were stopping and searching drivers based on skin color. In fact, the scandal led to the release of internal government documents which revealed how they had conspired to ensure the policy would continue unabated. The following facts are undisputed: as the Governor and Attorney General publicly conceded, the police had been racially profiling motorists for years; numerous felonies such as the routine filing of false police reports and the subornation of perjury had been committed to perpetuate this policy; and three young men were shot and almost killed. Yet, no one was ever held criminally responsible. Racial profiling is better than the perfect crime: even when the violation is discovered, there is still no remedy for the victims or penalty imposed upon the offenders.
