DRUG BUST TEARS A RIFT IN A SMALL TEXAS CITY TULIA -- The officers and deputies came in the morning. They arrested pig farmers and warehouse workers, single mothers and lithe young men who once were heroes for the town's pride and joy -- its high school football team. Forty-three people in all. The biggest drug raid in Swisher County's history was also the darkest day in memory for Tulia's small, tight-knit African American community. In a matter of hours that day in 1999, one of every six black residents had been indicted on charges of selling cocaine. At first, hardly anyone raised a voice in protest. The local paper celebrated the roundup of the ``scumbags.'' Those few with doubts kept quiet, except for one man -- a self-described ``hick farmer'' and gadfly named Gary Gardner. Thanks in part to his efforts, Tulia now stands divided by a controversy that has thrust this Panhandle town of 5,000 into the national debate about drugs, race and the criminal justice system. Sentiment here began to turn following a series of revelations about the white undercover agent who had set up the sting, a journeyman deputy with a tainted past whose word was the only evidence against most of the defendants. That information led the American Civil Liberties Union last week to file a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the county, charging the arrests were racially motivated. ``I just worked the facts, and the facts show that a lot of these people aren't guilty,'' Gardner said. ``It's like a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle you dump on the floor, and years later it begins to make sense.'' In the past year, Tulia's one-bench courthouse has been the site of 11 drug trials, each one ending with a conviction, most without a single black juror. Many of those convicted have received Texas-size sentences for selling relatively small amounts of cocaine -- crimes big-city prosecutors and judges likely would punish with a few years probation. The most recent trial ended last month with the conviction of Kareem Abdul Jabbar White, who got 60 years for selling one-eighth of an ounce of cocaine -- which has a street value of about $150. The district attorney and sheriff have defended both the drug raid and the aggressive prosecution. ``We're not a lynching county,'' said Swisher County District Attorney Terry McEachern. ``This is a community that's tough on drugs.'' So many people were arrested and put on trial that the county had to raise its property tax 5 percent to pay for it all. No one denies that Tulia has a drug problem. Rural communities have the nation's fastest-growing rate of cocaine and heroin use. But to some here it seems that, at best, the local authorities rounded up a bunch of small-time users -- many had previous arrests in petty offenses -- and treated them as if they were million-dollar drug kingpins. ``These are the young people we're supposed to be trying to help,'' said Charles Kiker, a retired Baptist preacher and one of a small but growing circle of citizens who have denounced the raid as government-sponsored ``ethnic cleansing.'' ``It's not the drugs they're after,'' said Mattie White, a guard at a nearby state prison who had three adult children arrested in the raid, including Kareem White. ``They don't want these kids in this town.'' Most are upset over reports that the county's first-ever undercover narcotics officer himself had been arrested halfway through the sting on a theft warrant. Tom Coleman had run afoul of authorities in nearby Cochran County, where he had worked as a deputy. The sheriff there accused him of stealing gasoline from the county. Coleman also owed more than $6,900 in unpaid debts to local merchants. His boss in Swisher County, Sheriff Larry Stewart, had Coleman fingerprinted and then released him on bond. A few weeks later, Coleman cleared his debts and paid restitution. He denied stealing the gas. The matter was quietly dropped. William Harrell, executive director of the Texas ACLU, calls the Tulia case ``the most blatant example of police and prosecutorial misconduct I've seen in my entire career.'' Harrell has petitioned federal authorities to launch a criminal investigation. In response to such charges and a flood of critical publicity, local residents are organizing a rally Monday to thank the sheriff ``for making Swisher County a safer place to live.'' Stewart said he is ``worn out'' by months of questions. ``There was never any attempt to target a specific group,'' he said. ``We wanted to attack the drug problem. These are the ones that got caught.''
No member comments available...
|