ARRESTS OF BLACKS IN TEXAS TOWN IS LIKENED TO 'ETHNIC CLEANSING'

AUSTIN, Texas -- A drug bust that prompted allegations of racial
discrimination in a small, predominantly white Texas farming town was begun
as a matter of "ethnic cleansing of young male blacks," two civil rights
groups said yesterday.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the
American Civil Liberties Union made the claim in a complaint filed with the
Justice Department, charging civil rights violations.

Forty-three people, 40 of them black, were rounded up in the undercover
operation July 23, 1999, in northwest Texas town of Tulia. The others were
two whites and one Hispanic.

Nearly 250 of the town's 5,000 residents are black.

"To have these numbers in a town of 246 African Americans, to have 40
adults . . . that have allegedly engaged in drug trafficking would suggest
something to you about Tulia that we know is not true," said Gary Bledsoe,
president of the NAACP of Texas. "We don't think Tulia is the drug haven of
the world."

The complaint alleges that Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and other
law enforcement officials selectively targeted the black community in the
sting operation run by undercover agent Tom Coleman. The complaint says
Coleman has no evidence other than his word to support allegations he
bought drugs, mainly cocaine, from the people who were arrested.

"The result has been the ethnic cleansing of young male blacks of Tulia,"
the complaint said.

Of those arrested in the drug sweep, 17 have pleaded guilty and 11 have
been convicted.

Stewart and Coleman did not immediately return telephone messages left by
The Associated Press.

Last month, the ACLU filed a suit on behalf of Yul Bryant, who was arrested
in July 1999 for allegedly selling cocaine a few months earlier.

His case was dropped when Swisher County District Attorney Terry McEachern
found out that Coleman was not 100 percent sure that he had bought cocaine
from Bryant.