CLOWNISH, INEPT AND LAWMAN OF THE YEAR

The state agency that monitors standards for law enforcement officers in
Texas had already been warned about Tom Coleman when he was hired to
conduct a bizarre one-man undercover drug operation that targeted the black
population in Tulia, a small town on the Texas panhandle.

The state agency that monitors standards for law enforcement officers in
Texas had already been warned about Tom Coleman when he was hired to
conduct a bizarre one-man undercover drug operation that targeted the black
population in Tulia, a small town on the Texas panhandle.

Dozens of black people, and a handful of whites who had relationships with
blacks, were arrested on July 23, 1999, after an 18-month "investigation"
by Coleman that at times was as farcical as a Jim Carrey movie.

Coleman, who is white, was a clownish and inept officer who threw away
important evidence, made terrible mistakes when identifying suspects,
routinely used racist language and on at least one occasion discharged his
weapon accidentally. And yet, on his uncorroborated, unsubstantiated
testimony, defendant after defendant was convicted of selling drugs, and
some were sentenced to prison terms of 20 years, 60 years, 90 years and more.

For his exploits in Tulia, Coleman was given a state "Lawman of the Year"
award.

But even before the curtain rose on the Tulia farce, the sheriff in Cochran
County had complained to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer
Standards and Education about Coleman's conduct.

In a letter to the commission dated June 14, 1996, the sheriff, Ken Burke,
said, "It is my opinion that an officer should uphold the law. Coleman
should not be in law enforcement if he is going to do people the way he did
in this town."

Officials in Tulia said they didn't know about that complaint when they
hired Coleman. But in the middle of his Tulia operation, Coleman was hit
with misdemeanor charges of theft and abuse of his official position in
Cochran County, where he had run up thousands of dollars in debts before
abruptly leaving. Coleman's boss in Tulia, Swisher County Sheriff Larry
Stewart, conveniently allowed his undercover cop to put his investigation
on hold, giving him time to borrow money and resolve the Cochran County
charges.

Coleman's investigation in Tulia was incredibly shabby, but it led to the
arrest of more than 10 percent of the town's black population.

Erick Willard, a lawyer who defended two women accused by Coleman, said he
had been stymied in his efforts to get Coleman's original, handwritten
accounts of individual arrests. In some cases, said Willard, "The way he
would record it was he'd lift up his pants leg and he'd write it on his leg."

Notes committed to paper were just as difficult to come by. Willard said
that during the discovery process he learned that secretaries had
supposedly typed some of Coleman's reports from notes that were then
"thrown away in a trash Dumpster."

He said he was never able to find out who the secretaries were.

Coleman liked to brag that he was "deep undercover," and that no one knew
where he was or what he was doing, "not even the police."

Willard's clients insisted they were innocent. Both took polygraph tests
and, in Willard's words, "passed with flying colors." But lie detector
tests are not admissible in court, and the district attorney's office would
not dismiss the charges.

Both women pleaded no contest. They were sentenced to time already served,
fined and released.

Top officials in Tulia acknowledged that drugs were also sold and consumed
by white and Hispanic residents, but Coleman focused almost exclusively on
blacks. In a videotaped interview, parts of which were aired on a local
television station, Coleman said he used the term "nigger" both on the job
and in casual conversations with friends and family. He said he believed
the word was no longer "as profane" as it once was.

Coleman eventually packed up and left Tulia, but he soon found himself in
trouble again -- this time in Ellis County. Joe Grubbs, the district
attorney of Ellis County, whose office had hired Coleman, told me that,
among other things, Coleman had engaged in contact with a woman that was
"inappropriate." He would not give details.

He said Coleman had also accidentally discharged his weapon during a drug
raid, but no one had been injured.

There were other problems, a "multiplicity" of problems. Said Grubbs: "He,
in effect, put me in a position where I had to discharge him, and I did."