AGENT'S PAST QUESTIONED IN TULIA DRUG BUSTS

Details Of Career Emerge In ACLU'S Federal Lawsuit

TULIA -- The undercover agent who helped build 43 drug cases against mainly
black residents of this small Panhandle town, leading to a federal civil
rights lawsuit last week, has a questionable past himself.

District Attorney Terry McEachern says racial prejudice played no role in
the busts, which resulted in 17 guilty pleas and 11 guilty verdicts. But
the Texas American Civil Liberties Union sued in federal court Friday
alleging civil rights violations, conspiracy and discrimination "intended
to accomplish the forbidden aim of cleansing Tulia of its black population."

All but three of those accused of selling drugs to undercover agent Tom
Coleman are black. Tulia, midway between Lubbock and Amarillo, is a town of
5,000 with 250 black residents.

Coleman is a Texas Ranger's son who had been a Pecos police officer and
Cochran County sheriff's deputy but left law enforcement in 1996 under
questionable circumstances. In late 1997, he came to Tulia and worked as a
welder before being hired in 1998 as an undercover drug agent for the
Swisher County Sheriff's Department.

"I told him to go wherever his investigation led him," Swisher County
Sheriff Larry Stewart testified.

In a 1996 letter to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer
Standards and Education, Cochran County Sheriff Ken Burke said Coleman quit
without notice in the middle of a shift, leaving behind debts and a patrol
car parked in his driveway.

Burke said he had to garnishee Coleman's wages for back child support.

"It is in my opinion that an officer should uphold the law," Burke wrote.
"Mr. Coleman should not be in law enforcement, if he is going to do people
the way he did this town."

Cochran County authorities filed charges of theft and abuse of power
against Coleman, about five months into his undercover assignment. The
charge was dismissed after he paid $6,950 in restitution.

In addition, Coleman's ex-girlfriend, Carla Bowerman, complained in
November 1996 to Marion County authorities that Coleman constantly called
and drove by her home. She didn't pursue charges but wanted the complaint
on file "in case he ... causes trouble."

At the trial of Kareem White, state District Judge Jack Miller did not
allow the allegations about Coleman into evidence.

He did permit Burke and a prosecutor from Fort Stockton to testify that
they knew Coleman to be "untruthful." But Sheriff Stewart and several other
officers followed, swearing to Coleman's honesty.

Critics suggest that Stewart led Coleman to target specific residents.

"Sheriff Stewart told me that he had a list of black people in town he
wanted investigated," Mattie White, a prison guard who is Kareem White's
mother, said in an affidavit. He "said that this was how all of these
people had come to be indicted."

White's trial was a "judicial lynching," Texas ACLU executive director Will
Harrell said. "I haven't ever seen such a clear case of prosecutorial and
police misconduct."

But McEachern remains satisfied with Coleman's role in the drug busts.

"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 said.

Several defendants accepted plea bargains after the first few trials
resulted in prison terms of up to 99 years.

Attorney Erick Willard said he advised two clients to accept a deal
"because they did not believe and I did not believe they could get a fair
hearing ... and that is a sad statement."