WOMAN ARRESTED FROM 1999 DRUG STING

One of two suspects still on the run from charges in a 1999 drug sting in
Tulia was arrested Thursday in Odessa.

Zury Bossett was arrested Thursday afternoon after she was pulled over for
an alleged traffic violation and a check of her identity revealed an
outstanding arrest warrant, said Odessa Police Department spokeswoman
Sherrie Thompson.

Bossett was still being held late Thursday in the Ector County Detention
Center on a warrant out of Swisher County for delivery of a controlled
substance, amount more than one gram but less than four grams, a jail
spokesman said.

Bossett is one of 46 people - 39 of whom were black - indicted by a Swisher
County grand jury in 1999 following an 18-month undercover investigation by
officer Tom Coleman.

Charges of racism and allegations of misconduct in the investigation
quickly brought Tulia to national prominence in the battle over drug policy.

The cases led to two civil lawsuits and a U.S. Department of Justice
investigation.

Bossett and Tonya Michelle White both were charged but left the area before
arrest warrants could be served. White remains a fugitive.

District Attorney Terry McEachern, who prosecuted nearly all of the cases
stemming from the undercover sting, said Thursday that no decision had been
made on how to proceed in Bossett's case because she had just been arrested.

"We'll treat it just like anybody else's case," McEachern said. "We're not
going to treat it any different. It will go through the normal process."

McEachern said Bossett likely would be returned to Swisher County in the
next week.

Vigo Park native Gary Gardner, who has been a vocal defender of the Tulia
defendants, said Bossett called him Thursday to tell him she had been
arrested. Bossett had been considering turning herself in and returning to
fight the charge against her but had decided against it because she was
pregnant, Gardner said.

Now that she has given birth, Bossett is in a position to defend herself
and settle questions about whether the defendants received fair trials,
Gardner said.

"Me and some of my friends are going to make sure she gets a good lawyer,"
Gardner said. "If she gets a fair trial based on the facts, I think it will
show what I believed all along, that a lot of these cases never should have
been tried."