White House Cites Attacks in Call for Dialogue on Race

WASHINGTON — Recent race-related attacks, including an alleged police attack in New York and the torching death of a black Virginia man, underscore the need for a national dialogue on race called by President Clinton, the White House said Thursday.

Press Secretary Mike McCurry said the president conceived the initiative to address racial attitudes that motivate such attacks.

He was responding to a reporter’s question about cases in New York, where police are accused of using a toilet plunger to sodomize a Haitian immigrant under arrest; and in Elk Creek, Va., where Garnett Paul “G.P.” Johnson, a black man, was doused with fuel, burned alive and beheaded after a night of drinking. Two white men are charged with robbery and murder in the Virginia case.

In the New York incident, one police commander was transferred and 11 officers were put on desk duty Thursday at the precinct where Abner Louima was allegedly attacked.

One officer, Justin Volpe, has been arrested and suspended from the force. Investigators believe at least one other officer took part directly in the alleged attack, which Louima said included racial slurs and death threats. Other officers, investigators believe, failed to report it.

John Hope Franklin, chairman of Clinton’s race advisory board, is meeting with psychologists this weekend to learn more about racial attitudes. He said he wants to gather information on “group morale” and how attitudes on race may be improved or modified through “psychological approaches.”

Franklin and another board member, former Mississippi Gov. William Winter, will attend a special meeting on psychology and race convened in Chicago by the American Psychological Assn. They are to participate in a Saturday session in which psychologists will have their own conversation on race.

Franklin expects to use what he learns to begin planning for the town hall meetings that are central to Clinton’s effort.