'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.

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 Mr. Coleman that at times was as farcical as a Jim Carrey movie.

Mr. 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, Mr. Coleman was given a state "Lawman of the
Year" award.

But even before the curtain rose on the Tulia farce, the sheriff in another
jurisdiction, Cochran County, had complained to the Texas Commission on Law
Enforcement about Mr. 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. Mr. 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 Mr. Coleman. But in the middle of his Tulia operation, Mr. 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. Mr. 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.

Mr. 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 Mr. Coleman, said
he had been stymied in his efforts to get Mr. Coleman's original,
handwritten accounts of individual arrests. In some cases, said Mr.
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. Mr. Willard
said that during the discovery process he learned that secretaries had
supposedly typed some of Mr. 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.

Mr. 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."

Mr. Willard's clients insisted they were innocent. Both took polygraph
tests and, in Mr. 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 Mr. Coleman focused almost exclusively
on blacks. In a videotaped interview, parts of which were aired on a local
television station, Mr. 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.

Mr. 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 Mr. Coleman, told me that,
among other things, Mr. Coleman had engaged in contact with a woman that
was "inappropriate." He would not give details.

He said Mr. 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 Mr. Grubbs:
"He, in effect, put me in a position where I had to discharge him, and I did."