N.J. Gov. Whitman Defends Frisking Incident
— -- Once considered a possible candidate for vice president, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is now involved in damage control over a four-year-old photo ofher frisking a black man while on patrol with police in 1996.
ABCNEWS.comJuly 11 — New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman says she has nothing to apologize for over a controversial photo that shows her frisking a black man during a ride-along withpolice.
The 4-year-old photo, which shows the governor smiling as she pats down a spread-eagled suspect while on late-night patrol in Camden with the state police, surfaced in a discrimination suit filed by black and Hispanic officers.
“I have nothing to apologize for,” the two-term Republican governor told Reuters at a National Governors Association meeting in State College, Pa. “That photo has absolutely no meaning outside the context in which it was taken.”
A spokesperson says the governor regrets the photo, taken in 1996 as Whitman was simply trying to “take part in the same experiences” as troopers on patrol. In this case, the suspect was never charged and was frisked first by police before the governor took her shot at frisking him.
The state ACLU says that second search, coming as it did after the first turned up nothing, was illegal. Civil rights advocates, who have long protested a state police practice of stopping people based on their race, are outraged over the photo.
Critics also are angry at the circumstances of the picture, taken by a trooper who was promised a weeks vacation by his supervisor if he brought back a photo of the governor frisking a black suspect.•
Tim Scheld contributed to this report.
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