TULIA REMEMBERS DRUG STING, PROSECUTIONS

TULIA, Texas (AP) - A crowd of about 350 people, a third of them
white, rallied peacefully in a Tulia park Sunday night to protest a
1999 drug bust they say was racially motivated.

All but three of the 43 people arrested in the bust were black.
Tulia's population is about 5,000, of which about 250 residents are
black.

People listened to music and poetry readings, played basketball and
ate hamburgers and hot dogs as they waited for the speakers to take
the stage on a hot Texas night.

"We need to challenge the drug policy that led to what happened in
Tulia two years ago," said Will Harrell, executive director of the
Texas ACLU. "Tulia has become a symbol of what's wrong with our drug
policy. It's got to be a collective effort, and every one of us counts."

Jerry Epstein, president of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, said
prohibition of drugs is the problem.

"Without prohibition, there is no drug war. Without prohibition, you
do not have people selling drugs," Mr. Epstein said. "How many black
and brown people do you have to put into prison to get white people to
stop using drugs?"

The evening rally was part of a "Freedom Ride" to Tulia that began in
Austin at midnight Saturday. A group of Tulia residents calling
themselves Friends of Justice, along with members of the state and
national chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and
League of United Latin American Citizens, made the trip on two
chartered buses.

During a midday stop near Plainview, under a blazing sun, about 80
people marched outside a state prison where one of the Tulia
defendants is imprisoned.

Civil rights groups say the bust led to convictions based on flimsy
evidence: the uncorroborated testimony of the lone undercover agent
whose questionable past was barred from discussion during the trials.
They say no drugs, money or weapons were seized in the roundup, and
there is no information to back up the undercover agent's word that he
bought drugs from the accused.

Eleven of those arrested in Tulia were found guilty and another 17
accepted plea agreements.

"What happened in Tulia is a horrible embarrasment to my profession
because this guy followed no procedures of a normal police officer,"
said former Michigan policeman Howard Wooldridge, 50, of Fort Worth,
who attended the rally on his one-eyed horse, Misty. "Sloppy is being
generous."

"A bunch of them shouldn't be in prison. It was racial profiling to
the max. A violation of the Fourth Amendment," said Wooldridge.

Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and District Attorney Terry
McEachern deny allegations of racial bias and stand by the arrests and
convictions. So does the undercover drug agent, Tom Coleman, who no
longer works in law enforcement.

"I don't have no comment," Mr. Coleman said Friday from his home near
Waxahachie. "Everybody knows what kind of operation it was."

The protesters stopped near Plainview because one of the Tulia
defendants is imprisoned at the nearby Formsby Unit.

"This is madness. This is a public health problem, it is not a
criminal justice problem," said protester Rosemary Simmons, 57, and
Austin psychologist, who is black. She held a sign reading "drug war
equals racism."

"It's a civil rights issue, that's why I'm out here."

In Tulia, police occasionally circled the block where the rally was
held. About 35 officers from the Department of Public Safey, Texas
Rangers, Swisher County Sheriff's Department and Tulia police waited
at police headquarters.

Terri Brookins, 20, said she thought the rally gave her husband,
Freddie Brookins Jr., one of the defendants, some encouragement. She
visited him at the prison in Brownsfield before attending the rally.
He is scheduled for parole in March and is appealing his case.

"He thinks it's a good idea to have this rally," she said.

The Tulia case inspired successful legislation this year in Austin. A
bill sponsored by Rep. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, prohibits Texans from
being convicted of drug charges based solely on the testimony of
undercover police officers.

"This bill was supported by law officers across the state," Mr.
Hinojosa said last week. "They don't want to convict just on the word
of an informant without corroboration."

A second law made officers' personnel files no longer exempt from
disclosure under certain circumstances.

Mr. Harrell of the Texas ACLU said more can be done to prevent bad
drug cases from reaching prosecution. His group has asked that the
Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence review regional
narcotics task forces.

Friday, the ACLU asked the Texas attorney general's office to
investigate whether racial profiling and civil rights abuses are part
of the task forces. The ACLU says that narcotics task forces target
minorities in low-income communities in order to bolster their arrest
numbers to gain grant money.

The letter was filed late in the day, and attorney general spokesman
Mark Heckmann said it would have to be reviewed before the office
could comment.

Appeals are pending in the drug cases. The ACLU and NAACP have filed a
federal lawsuit against some Swisher County officials, and the
Department of Justice is investigating. An FBI agent based in Amarillo
said Friday that the probe could be complete in about a month.

Mr. Coleman recently was dismissed from a spot on the Southeast
Metroplex Narcotics Task Force near Dallas for engaging in a
"relationship that was inappropriate," said Ellis County District
Attorney Joe Grubbs.