DRUG BUST CONTROVERSY CONTINUES IN TULIA

TULIA, Tex. - Allegations of racism and police conspiracy have swirled like
the West Texas wind around this small farming town since a mass drug bust
locked up an estimated 10 percent of the small African American population.

As civil rights activists see it, a small-town sheriff listed more than
three dozen black Americans as "undesirables" and plotted their arrests to
remove them from Tulia.

Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP allege
the sheriff enlisted the help of a rogue undercover narcotics cop, who
fabricated evidence and supplied false trial testimony. Then a series of
mostly white juries, believing they were doing their part in the war on
drugs, sent the accused off to prison for dealing cocaine.

Whether their accusations are true is far from clear. But Tulia, a
predominantly white and Hispanic community of about 4,500 people 430 miles
west of Dallas, has become a rallying point for civil rights activists
looking to spur change in the nation's drug laws.

"I think ultimately race played a factor in what happened, but this cuts
deeper than race," said Jeff Blackburn, an ACLU lawyer from Amarillo, 75
miles north of Tulia, who filed a civil rights lawsuit in September against
Swisher County and those involved in the drug sting.

"This cuts down to the very attitude people have toward justice in this
country, an attitude that we've allowed to be suspended when drugs are
involved. That, to me, is a big problem," Blackburn said.

Last month, the ACLU joined the NAACP and a New York civil rights legal
group in filing a formal complaint asking the Justice Department to
investigate whether the Tulia arrests violated civil rights.

The story began to unfold in January 1998 when Swisher County Sheriff Larry
P. Stewart hired veteran law officer Tom Coleman to conduct an undercover
operation aimed at reducing illegal drug sales in the Tulia area.

Eighteen months later, in July 1999, 43 suspects--all but three of them
black--were arrested in connection with the probe. More than 20 were
ultimately convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from a few years
to more than 400 years for one man with a prior conviction. Others were
sentenced to probation.

The racial fire was fueled when Blackburn and others alleged that Coleman
offered little physical evidence to back up his claims that he was able to
buy small amounts of powder cocaine from suspects--with no videotapes,
audio tapes, photographs or other means of corroboration.

Law officers and others questioned Coleman's credibility during testimony
at one of the trials. But he also had supporters in the law enforcement
community and has won a law enforcement award in the past year for his work
in Tulia.

Coleman, who no longer works in Swisher County, has declined interview
requests. But in court documents filed on Nov. 1, he denied fabricating
evidence, providing false testimony and other allegations made against him
by Blackburn.

Stewart, District Attorney Terry McEachern and others involved in the
operation have repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Stewart has specifically
denied that he had a list of local blacks whom he considered "undesirable,"
as Blackburn's lawsuit alleges.

Many Tulia residents have supported the law officers and the anti-drug
operation. "Larry Stewart is straight as an arrow," said Gordon Scott, a
retired surgeon who has lived in Tulia for about 15 years. "He is a fine
Christian man. He is not prejudiced. He is trustworthy. He was just doing
his job."

Others in the community have questions.

"When we saw in the paper that 43 people had been arrested in Tulia for
selling drugs, my wife said, 'Who are they selling them to?' " said the
Rev. Charles Kiker, a retired Baptist preacher. "It seemed kind of
far-fetched there would be a drug problem of that proportion in a community
where people still don't lock their houses."

Kiker said some of those arrested probably were drug users and some may
have been "trapped" into selling drugs to the undercover officer. "They
were not 'drug dealers,' " he said.

But Scott said he has no trouble believing authorities. He said he knows a
teenage girl in town who was approached by a drug dealer but refused to
make a purchase.

"He said, 'If you tell anybody, I will kill you,' " Scott said. "This kind
of thing has happened to a number of students. These are dangerous dudes."

Some of those imprisoned as a result of the undercover operation pleaded
guilty to charges against them. Others were convicted at trial.

"I can't claim to have any detailed knowledge about what went on in a jury
room," Scott said, "but our [church] choir director's wife was on a jury.
From what she told her husband, they took their jobs very seriously and
felt convinced the individual was guilty as charged."

Scott said he believes Tulia drug dealers were also making sales in
Amarillo, Plainview and other area communities, not just in the county. And
he said a lot of the controversy around the case has been caused by people
who do not live in Tulia.

"The Kunstler group has had representatives in here . . . fanning the
flames, I suspect," he said, referring to the William Moses Kunstler Fund
for Racial Justice, founded in memory of the flamboyant civil rights lawyer
who died in 1995.

Randy Credico of the New York-based group said he had been in the area
about two months and planned to stay "until this plays out."

"What's happened there should cause alarm to everyone," he said. "If this
guy [Coleman] can put people in prison on a mass scale, if he can do that
without any eyewitnesses other than himself, that's the kind of crap that
went on in Soviet Russia in the '30s that we all rail against."