ARRESTS BY A DRUG TASK FORCE IN TEXAS COME UNDER FIRE

A state prosecutor in Texas has dismissed charges against 17 residents of a
small town who were arrested by a drug task force that has been accused of
focusing on blacks.

The arrests, among 28 that the task force made in the past year in Hearne
in Central Texas, so outraged black residents that the City Council hired a
paramilitary security firm to take a color-blind approach toward drug
enforcement.

The prosecutor, John Paschall, the Robertson County district attorney, said
yesterday that the informer who was responsible for most of the arrests had
failed polygraph tests when questioned about tampering with the evidence in
some cases.

"If he tampered with one case, as far as I'm concerned, he could have
tampered with others," Mr. Paschall said of the informer, Derrick Megress.
"Other than those who have pled guilty already, I'm going to dismiss them."

Arrests by a similar task force — which involves local, state and federal
law enforcement agencies — in Tulia in the Texas Panhandle have also been
criticized for focusing on blacks and for relying on a questionable
informer. The Justice Department is investigating the Tulia task force.

Last week, the Texas chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and the
N.A.A.C.P. asked the Justice Department to expand that investigation to the
Hearne drug task force, contending that events in both towns showed a
pattern of racism.

"I'm elated. This was an extraordinary release," said William Harrell,
executive director of the A.C.L.U.'s Texas chapter, "but the questions
still remain as to the legitimacy of that task force."

Mr. Harrell said that the 11 individuals who had already pleaded guilty in
Hearne should be allowed to withdraw those pleas and have their cases
dismissed.

"We still believe that all of these people had their civil rights violated,
and that the Justice Department should proceed with its investigation and
sanction the task forces in Hearne and Tulia," he said.

The dismissals in Hearne seemed unlikely to quell deeply held suspicions
there that drug investigations have been rooted in racial bias.

"What they call a drug war is picking out 20 or 30 young black people every
year, then arresting them," said Charles Workman, a Baptist minister who is
one of three blacks on the five-member Hearne City Council.

Mr. Workman, whose nephew, Corvian, was charged with drug-related offenses
by the task force, was the official who first proposed that the town —
which is 44 percent black, according to the 2000 census — open its own
front in the war on drugs and hire the security company.

"Our feeling was that if we're going to fight drugs, let's get everybody,
from the big-time wealthy people to whoever else is involved," he said.

In February, the Council approved a $390,000 contract with ShadowGuard, a
company promising that, with sophisticated electronic surveillance
equipment, it could stop drug shipments to Hearne within four months, Mr.
Workman said.

ShadowGuard's executive officers, Rick Castillo, 56, and Ron Holbrook, 46,
said they planned to hire retired military officers and drug interdiction
experts, though resumes submitted to the City Council showed their own
relevant experience seemed limited to the sale of home security devices.
Mr. Holbrook said last week that he had also been an unpaid undercover
operative for the federal government.

The contract outraged many in Hearne, particularly white residents, who
pressured the Council to rescind the agreement a week later.

Mr. Paschall, who until recently led the Hearne task force, said it was
ludicrous to say blacks were the target of the task force, which he said
was trying to stop mid-level dealers who were selling powdered cocaine to
make crack.

"Ninety-five percent of those involved in crack cocaine are black; 95
percent of those involved in some drugs, like methamphetamines, are white
or Hispanic," Mr. Paschall said. "If a task force is targeting
methamphetamines, you're going to arrest more whites; if it's targeting
crack cocaine, you're going to get more black people."

But many black resident of Hearne said the task force's efforts had been
devastating. "It's like every year they take the high school senior class
and charge them with drugs," said Michelle Brantley, 37, whose brother,
Michael Wells, 28, was arrested for the second time in November.

Eleven of those arrested have already pleaded guilty, and two cases were
dismissed earlier. A jury hearing charges against Mr. Workman's nephew
deadlocked 11 to 1 to acquit.

As in Tulia, where a task force arrested 12 percent of the town's black
population in July 1999, there were complaints from the start in Hearne
about the credibility of the state's informer, Mr. Megress.

Mr. Megress, 27, has been convicted twice of theft and had an agreement
with prosecutors to avoid jail if he could produce 20 drug arrests.

Until yesterday, Mr. Paschall had defended Mr. Megress's credibility. "We'd
like to have Baptist ministers and Catholic priests buying and selling
drugs, but the real world doesn't operate that way," he said last week.

Yesterday, Mr. Paschall said of those charged that "I don't doubt one
minute their guilt in dealing drugs."

"But," he continued, "I now have a doubt as to the amount of drugs they may
have sold and whether the evidence was tampered with.

"To me, that taints the investigation, that taints the charge, and I am not
going to prosecute someone on that kind of evidence."

Mr. Paschall said he would not consider dropping charges against the 11
defendants who have already pleaded guilty. "These guys pled guilty because
they probably were guilty," he said.