GROUND ZERO IN THE DRUG WAR

Sometimes a small town can teach big lessons about huge problems.

In this case, a tiny West Texas town of only 5,000 residents was the site
of one of the largest and most significant moments in the history of the
prolonged and failed war on drugs.

Tulia, Texas, was the place where independently-contracted undercover agent
Tom Coleman allegedly made more than 100 purchases of illegal narcotics,
mostly powdered cocaine.

The details of the busts have now become legendary and the city of Tulia
now has a rather unsavory image.

Thirty-five of the 41 arrested came from the town's African-American
population of about 350 people.

Coleman was named the Outstanding Lawman of the Year by the Texas
Department of Public Safety for the busts, but since the arrests, several
striking questions have come to light. For example: Where are the drugs?

One would think that if a town like Tulia were overrun by such an extensive
cartel, there would at least be some sort of narcotic evidence, money or
perhaps guns. Wrong. With little to no evidence to substantiate any of the
charges brought by Coleman, most of the suspects were convicted on the
basis of his testimony and his testimony alone. The allegations of one man
with his own questionable past including an arrest for theft while
undercover is hardly sufficient cause to lock up 10 percent of a town's
African-American population. But that's exactly what happened. With no
audio or video recordings of any of the sales and no second officer to
corroborate his story, Coleman was left claiming that he had recorded much
of the information he needed by, of all things, writing it on his leg. Many
of the charges were upgraded to first-degree felonies due to the proximity
of the alleged sales to schools or parks.

When seeing the kinds of outrageous sentences issued by Panhandle juries,
even for first-time offenders accused of moving miniscule amounts of drugs,
several of the accused began to plea bargain.

The bust was in July 1999. Since then, the prosecution's case has slowly
begun to unravel.

Yesterday, people from across the state came to Tulia to remember the
tragic inquisition, to point to the overwhelming racial disparity in
enforcing the war on drugs and to protest the kinds of law enforcement
abuses that allow so many citizens to be locked away so expeditiously.
People across the state are now asking how it could be conceivable that
there were 40 cocaine dealers in a dustbowl town of 5,000 people that
doesn't even have a fast food joint.

Disproportionate enforcement of laws is nothing new. Racial bias is evident
in sentencing too. For example, in the most recent census,
African-Americans comprise about 12 percent of the population in Texas.
However, 42 percent of Texas death row inmates are African American,
according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The drug war is just
another example of the disproportionate targeting of African-Americans.
Communities across the country are losing an entire generation of young
people, doomed to grow up in cages.

What makes the events in Tulia remarkable is that they show the dramatic
violence that the anti-drug crusade can have on a single community. Tulia
is a microcosm for the racism and futility of the drug war. Coleman's
personal track record is questionable, but the methodology of the police
and the prosecutors in the Tulia busts was a travesty.

That it took this long for national attention to be directed to the dusty
plains of Tulia should serve as a reminder of the importance of vigilance
against this war on people.