DEFENDING HIS CITY

Swisher Sheriff Breaks Silence, Says Tulia Not Racist Community

TULIA - For more than a year, Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart has kept
silent about the controversial 1999 Tulia drug sting, hoping the cases
would run their course and the furor would die down.

But with renewed national attention focused on the drug bust in the past
few weeks, Stewart has decided to step forward and defend his hometown and
the undercover operation, in which he still believes.

"Nobody likes to get beat up, but I can take my lumps," Stewart said. "What
I find so disappointing is what's being said about Tulia. This is not a
racist community. This is a wonderful community full of wonderful people."

Stewart said his first priority is not to deflect criticism from himself or
anyone else involved in the investigation - which was conducted by
undercover agent Tom Coleman and netted 46 defendants, 39 of whom were
black - but to defend Tulia, which he said has unfairly received a black
eye from all the attention.

Stewart said he bristles every time the national media visit Tulia for a
day or two, then implies or even outright states that the entire town of
5,000 is racist or bigoted.

That accusation couldn't be further from the truth, Stewart said.

Stewart points to Billy Dick, a black man with whom the sheriff went to
high school, as an example. Dick was named Mister Tulia High School in 1960
at a time when race relations were in terrible shape in many communities
across the country.

"I'm not going to lie to you and say there weren't some older people in
this community that were outraged by that," Stewart said. "But it was my
generation that named him Mister THS, and we're the ones being accused of
racism."

Stewart can list a dozen other indicators of Tulia's lack of racism, but he
points to the actions of the town's people toward the needy as perhaps the
most important.

Stewart said that when he looks at Tulia, he sees a different picture than
the one passed off by the media and by the people opposed to the drug bust.

Stewart sees a town that distributes thousands of dollars raised locally to
needy families, regardless of color. He notes that Tulia residents have
built or repaired many houses for less-fortunate families, including some
families caught up in the drug sting.

"This community takes care of those that need help, regardless of who they
are," Stewart said. "I have seen benefit meals put on for people of every
race and every economic level."

Though Stewart said the most grievous misperception stemming from the drug
sting deals with the town of Tulia, he also is looking to clear up some
things about the undercover investigation itself.

Coleman's background, specifically charges of theft and official oppression
from when he worked in Cochran County, have generated many questions, but
Stewart said he is satisfied that Coleman did not do anything wrong.

Stewart said Coleman told him about his debts in Cochran County before he
hired the agent, and when the warrant for Coleman's arrest came in, Coleman
emphatically denied stealing anything in Cochran County.

Even with Coleman's denial, Stewart said he and officials from Panhandle
Narcotics Trafficking Task Force, which trained and supervised Coleman,
decided that if the charges were true, Coleman would have to go.

"But he went down there and cleared things up, then came back up here and
took a lie detector test," Stewart said. "He passed it, and we put him back
on the job."

Stewart said he still believes Coleman's cases in Tulia were legitimate,
despite defense attorneys' opposing claims. Those defense claims were
bolstered in April by the dismissal of defendant Tonya White's charges
after she produced bank records that indicate she was in Oklahoma when
Coleman said she was selling him drugs.

Stewart said he doesn't know what happened in White's case, but he suspects
a mix-up in the indictment dates. Whatever the cause, Stewart said, the
important thing is that whenever officials, including Coleman, discovered
discrepancies, the cases were dismissed, including at least two that never
went to the grand jury because the identity of the suspect wasn't clear.

"Nobody here wants to see anyone in jail for a crime they didn't commit,"
Stewart said. "We did everything we could do to keep that from happening."

Perhaps the most serious charge against the investigation is that it was
racially motivated, a charge that Stewart emphatically denies.

Stewart said he doesn't believe that Coleman is a racist, pointing to the
fact that Coleman fought to keep Eliga Kelly Sr., a black man whom Coleman
befriended during the investigation, from going to jail.

Most importantly, Stewart said, the bust couldn't have been racially
motivated because Coleman was instructed to go after anyone who would sell
him drugs, regardless of who that person was.

"I told him the rules are that you go where your investigation goes,"
Stewart said. "I don't care if it leads to my office, the police department
or the county courthouse. Nobody is off-limits."