350 PROTEST 1999 DRUG BUST IN TULIA

TULIA - About 350 people, a third of them white, rallied 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
African-Americans. 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.

The evening rally was part of a "freedom ride" to Tulia that began in
Austin at midnight Saturday. A group of Tulia residents who call
themselves Friends of Justice, together with members of the state and
national chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP
and the 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.

A candlelight vigil was scheduled for midnight at the Swisher County Jail.

"This is to give a shot in arm to people in Tulia who have stood up
and said this won't happen again," said Will Harrell, executive
director of the Texas ACLU.

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
no information was introduced to back up the undercover agent's story
that he bought drugs from the accused.

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

Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and District Attorney Terry
McEachern deny allegations of racial bias and stand by the arrests
and convictions.