ACLU CLAIMS BUST VIOLATED 43 PEOPLE'S CIVIL RIGHTS

Forty-three people arrested in a 1999 drug sting in Tulia, the majority of
whom are black, were victims of a conspiracy to violate their civil rights,
an American Civil Liberties Union official said at a rally at the Texas
state Capitol Friday.

Addressing a crowd of about 100, Texas ACLU Executive Director William
Harrell announced plans to file suit against the Tulia district attorney,
sheriff and an undercover narcotics officer for their roles in the sting,
which landed roughly one-sixth of the town's black population in jail.

Twenty-three of those arrested remain in prison today.

According to an ACLU statement, the civil suit alleges the deliberate
targeting and prosecution of the 43 plaintiffs based on their race.

"We think that Tulia is the latest tragedy in the war on drugs," Harrell
said. "We will prove that [undercover officer] Tom Coleman was a thief, a
liar and a racist."

District Attorney Terry McEachern, one of three named in the suit, has said
racial prejudice played no role in the busts, which so far has resulted in
17 guilty pleas and 11 guilty verdicts.

"If I didn't have complete confidence that the law had not been broken and
that he was not telling the truth, then I would be the first one to dismiss
all of these cases," McEachern told The Associated Press.

Tulia, located in the Texas Panhandle near Amarillo, has a population of
approximately 5,000, of which about 240 or roughly five percent are black.
Of the 43 arrested in the 1999 drug sting, 40 were black, Harrell said.

Harrell described the Tulia bust as a "gross miscarriage of justice" by
what he said was the most racially discriminatory state judicial system in
the country.

"Why is it that Texas prisons are disproportionately black and Latino?"
Harrell asked the crowd. "Police officers are racially profiling [these
groups], and we want it to stop."

Surrounded by friends and family of those convicted, the Rev. Charles Kiker
of Tulia likened the 1999 drug sting to a war against the city's minority
population, perpetrated by a law enforcement team that allegedly ignored a
gross lack of evidence in the case.

"The word of a man who did not wear a wire, the word of a man which was
uncorroborated by any independent evidence, has created 23 prisoners of war
and about 35 POW orphans," he said, gesturing to the prisoners' children
who gathered around him as the crowd chanted, "Shame! Shame!"

Among the children from Tulia present Friday were Justice Acy, age 5,
Shardae Acy, age 9, and Ashley Bournett, age 11. The three are living with
their grandmother because their mother is in prison as a result of the bust.

Eighteen-year-old Gerrod Ervine, who pled guilty in the bust and received
10 years probation, called the mass arrest "bogus" and said there could not
have been 43 drug dealers in Tulia.

"I know there weren't that many dope dealers in a 5,000 population," he
said. "Who are the dope smokers? If everyone's selling the dope, who's
smoking the dope?"

Anita Barrow, whose twin sons each received 20 years in prison in the bust,
said she attended the protest to speak out against what she felt is an
unfair system.

"I came here because I want to put a stop to it. I want justice done," she
said.

As they walked to their bus, the sun illuminated words printed on the backs
of T-shirts they designed for the trip to Austin.

"Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly," the shirts read.