It's unbelievable that Governor Whitman, with all the problems in New Jersey regarding racial profiling by the State Police, would be involved in conducting pat downs of young blacks in Camden ( "Whitman photo: an urban symbol," Page A-1, July 13 ).  Was this an arrest on her part? Did she read the suspect his Miranda rights? Or was it a publicity photo op, like when New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Sen.  Al D'Amato dressed like the Blues Brothers pretending they were narcs in Washington Heights?

Drug problems certainly exist in the affluent suburbs of northern New Jersey.  I would love to see the governor patting down the child of some rich or connected white suburbanite the way she was so anxious to do in Camden that day in 1996.

Anthony Van Zwaren, Ridgefield, July 21