NAACP, ACLU TO FILE COMPLAINT

Officials of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
and the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday announced the groups have
jointly filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice
in the case of alleged civil rights violations in Swisher County.

The complaint, filed under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which
deals with municipalities, seeks to withhold federal funds from the
Amarillo-based Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force.

"Federal law says that agencies must follow rules; they cannot use federal
money in a discriminatory way," said Amarillo attorney Jeff Blackburn of
the ACLU. "The Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force did not follow basic
rules of police procedure. You are supposed to have a fair and sound
investigation, and that was not the case with Mr. Coleman."

Undercover agent Tom Coleman was the lone agent in an 18-month drug
operation that resulted in the arrest and subsequent convictions of about
40 black Tulia residents.

The complaint alleges that Swisher County used funds from the PRNTF, a
federally funded agency, to hire Coleman.

The complaint alleges the task force violated the Fourth, Eighth and 16th
Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and asks the U.S. Justice Department to
completely defend the PRNTF.

"The case has cold, hard print in the form of trial transcripts," Blackburn
said. "We have boxes and boxes of information that show Coleman lied; his
word is not reliable. I believe the allegations made by Coleman are false
and cannot be proven under any circumstances.

"The whole operation was out of control. This kind of operation should not
be financed with federal money."

Alfonso Vaughan, president of the Amarillo chapter of the NAACP, said the
problem may be bigger than just Tulia.

"This may just be the tip (of the iceberg)," Vaughan said. "We've received
a number of calls from other communities."

In addition, Vaughan said the drug sting was an aberration because most of
the arrests were for white, powdered cocaine, while crack was the drug of
choice in the black community.

Randy Kreddico of the New York City-based William Moses Kunstler Fund for
American Justice said the issue was national.

"It's not just Tulia. It's not just the Panhandle; it's across the United
States," Kreddico said. "The war on drugs is a war on race."

And the war on drugs goes beyond that, Blackburn said.

"The local politicians cashed in on the war on drugs," he said. "They get
money for equipment and supplies and other things. It's a big business."

Kreddico promised the issue would not disappear.

"I'm sure the folks in Tulia would like for it to go away, but it's not
going to go away," he said. "This case is a national story. It will be the
Mai Lai of the war on drugs."

Lt. Mike Amos, project director of the PRNTF, did not return phone calls
from the Amarillo Globe-News by late Friday.

The complaint comes on the heels of a civil suit filed Sept. 29 in U.S.
District Court in Amarillo by the Texas affiliate of the ACLU alleging that
Coleman, Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and District Attorney Terry
McEachern conspired to violate the civil rights of local blacks.

Blackburn filed the suit on behalf of his client, Yul Bryant, who Blackburn
said repeated his innocence for seven months before the charges were
dropped and he was released from jail.

The suit asks for $1 million in actual damages and $1 million in punitive
damages from each of the three officials named in the suit.