HERE COME THE FEDS

The U.S. Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into
possible civil rights violations by law enforcement authorities in Tulia,
Texas. This is the latest development in the story, first broken in these
pages last summer ("Color of Justice," by Nate Blakeslee, June 23), of a
racially-tainted undercover drug sting, which resulted in the arrest of
over ten percent of the small Panhandle farming town's black population.
According to sources in Tulia, federal agents have already interviewed at
least two of the men on the hot seat: Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart,
who hired the undercover narc and arranged the operation, and District
Attorney Terry McEachern, who prosecuted the cases, many of which ended in
enormous jury verdicts for delivery of relatively small amounts of cocaine.

At issue is not only the targeting of the sting-35 of 41 suspects arrested
were black-but also the quality of the evidence.

The undercover agent, Tom Coleman, has had a less-than-stellar law
enforcement career, including one assignment as a deputy that ended with a
West Texas sheriff eventually seeking an indictment against him. Coleman
did not wear a wire during the sting, nor did the prosecution provide video
evidence or the testimony of corroborating officers, as is common practice
in similar operations in most major cities.

At press time, it's unclear whether the G-men have questioned Coleman, but
he is undoubtedly next on the list.

One silver lining in the dark cloud over Tulia is that a "Tulia package" of
bills will be filed by the Texas ACLU when the Legislature convenes in
Austin in January. According to Central Texas ACLU board member Kathy
Mitchell, the package tentatively will include a provision requiring some
sort of corroborating evidence that a controlled buy has been made by an
undercover agent.

This would prevent cases from being made solely on the word of one officer,
which has in the past led to some disastrous results in cases involving
dishonest undercover agents.

A second Tulia bill in the works would strengthen the watchdog role of the
state's licensing agency for peace officers, the Texas Commission on Law
Enforcement Officer Standards-Education (TCLEOSE). At the time he was hired
in Tulia, Coleman had a very damaging letter in his TCLEOSE file from a
previous employer, a sheriff in Cochran County, who warned that Coleman
should never be employed in law enforcement again. Yet it's unclear how
accessible that information was to Swisher County authorities, whether they
had an obligation to review the file, or whether TCLEOSE should have been
required to ensure that they did. Public access to the contents of an
officer's file is also restricted, something an ACLU bill may seek to rectify.