A FORMER TROOPER'S TAKE ON HIS RACE PROFILING CASE

HAMILTON, N.J. - Twice every workday, John I. Hogan drives past
Milepost 63 on the New Jersey Turnpike and feels his pulse begin to quicken.

These days, he makes the trip as a civilian, just another commuter,
as he heads between his home in Bordentown and his job as a salesman
in Jamesburg. Eight years ago, though, Mr. Hogan was a decorated New
Jersey state trooper who patrolled the turnpike and called himself
"King of the Big Road," when a brief encounter near Exit 7A changed
his life, the lives of others and police policy.

It was late one spring night in 1998 when Mr. Hogan and a trooper
named James Kenna maneuvered their police cruiser alongside a minivan
carrying four young men, three of them black and one Hispanic, and
ordered the driver to pull over. It was supposed to be an ordinary
traffic stop, but then the van rolled backward and the troopers fired
11 shots, wounding three of the four men inside.

Because the young men were unarmed and the State Police had long been
accused of stopping and searching drivers solely because of their
skin color, the shooting set off a political uproar about the use of
racial profiling in the war on drugs.

Mr. Hogan and Mr. Kenna were seen as national symbols of police
discrimination and were indicted for attempted murder and aggravated
assault. Those charges were eventually dropped, but the troopers were
forced to resign after pleading guilty to lying to investigators
about the shooting and repeatedly falsifying documents to conceal the
fact that they stopped minority drivers because of their race. They
each paid a $280 fine.

Now, after years of living with that case as a stigma "that just
won't go away," Mr. Hogan, 37, is trying to put the experience in a
different perspective by publishing a book, "Turnpike Trooper." Mr.
Hogan writes that he and Mr. Kenna were victims -- of fate, which
placed them at the scene of the shooting, then of a long line of
elected officials, civil rights leaders and law enforcement officials
angling for political gain.

Mr. Hogan's book contradicts so many statements he made to
investigators in 1998 and in court when he pleaded guilty in 2002
that he had difficulty finding a publisher, and he finally decided to
pay to have it published. Since the book's publication several months
ago, he has also struggled to find an audience for it.

"I'm at peace with what happened," he said last Wednesday in an
interview outside his office. "Sometimes, though, I think people just
want this whole thing to go away."

In "Turnpike Trooper" Mr. Hogan writes that he was raised in a small,
predominantly white town, loved sports, saluted the flag and
considered troopers the equivalent of "Greek gods." He excelled once
on the force, winning a prestigious assignment to the turnpike, and
was nominated for trooper of the year.

In the book, Mr. Hogan says no one encouraged him to pick out
minority drivers, flatly contradicting his own court testimony in
2002. Although New Jersey has since stiffened its guidelines against
racial profiling and many experts say it is both unconstitutional and
ineffective, he defends the practice, arguing that while drug use
cuts across racial lines, his experience led him to believe that drug
trafficking was dominated by blacks and Latinos.

Mr. Hogan also writes that he found it useful to his work as a
trooper to listen to rap performers like Nas, N.W.A. and Notorious B.I.G.

"Staying cool, composed and speaking to individuals in a language
they understood, and even began to trust, helped me be successful," he writes.

That was of little assistance on the night of April 23, 1998, when he
and Mr. Kenna stopped the minivan.

Mr. Hogan writes that he fired only after the driver had backed up,
struck his leg and knocked him over, and that he feared the young men
were drug dealers trying to kill him and Mr. Kenna. (The driver said
the minivan slipped into reverse.)

When he pleaded guilty in 2002 he acknowledged that he had lied to
investigators about the circumstances that led to stopping the
minivan and about crucial details of the shooting. He also testified
that 75 police officers had urged him to lie and that some even took
him back to the scene so he could prepare a more plausible story.

Mr. Hogan, who maintains the same close-cropped hair and chiseled
build that he had as a trooper, explains the contradictions between
the book and his earlier statements by saying he no longer has any
motivation to lie.

"This is, every word of it, the truth," he said. "I just want the
truth to come out."

"Turnpike Trooper" may be a bid for redemption, but it offers little
in the way of remorse.

It makes acerbic references to the state's payment of $12.9 million
to the four young men to settle the case, and it makes little mention
of the injuries three of the men suffered. In the interview, he
suggested that he felt as much sympathy for himself and Mr. Kenna as
he did for them.

"There were a lot of people whose lives were affected that night," he
said. "It's unfortunate that it happened, but there's no way to
change the past."

Peter Neufeld, the lawyer who represented two of the shooting victims
in their civil suit, said it was outrageous for Mr. Hogan to portray
himself as a victim.

"These young men still have bullets in them," Mr. Neufeld said. "And
it happened because Hogan and Kenna stopped them for no reason other
than the color of their skin. Then they lied about it."

The omissions and discrepancies in Mr. Hogan's book seemed of little
concern to the people who appeared on Thursday at a book signing in
Hamilton Township, about five miles from where the shooting occurred.
Sitting with his fiancee as he autographed a few dozen copies, Mr.
Hogan said he appreciated the friendly welcome, especially after the
indifference he had encountered while trying to promote the book.

Taking a microphone, Mr. Hogan asked if there were any questions from
the 60 people in the audience, all of whom were white and several of
whom wore New Jersey State Police T-shirts or hats. A man in a Nascar
shirt asked whether he had made any television appearances. (A few
local cable programs, but no luck with the networks or affiliates.)

Then a retired trooper, Walt Catlidge, asked his former colleague
whether he planned a sequel.

"No," Mr. Hogan said, shaking his head. "I think this was enough for me."