Pubdate: Mon, 02 Oct 2000
Source: Daily Texan (TX)
Contact:  http://stumedia.tsp.utexas.edu/webtexan/
Author: Jamie Kopf

ACLU CLAIMS BUST VIOLATED 43 PEOPLE'S CIVIL RIGHTS

Forty-three people arrested in a 1999 drug sting in Tulia, the majority of 
whom are black, were victims of a conspiracy to violate their civil rights, 
an American Civil Liberties Union official said at a rally at the Texas 
state Capitol Friday.

Addressing a crowd of about 100, Texas ACLU Executive Director William 
Harrell announced plans to file suit against the Tulia district attorney, 
sheriff and an undercover narcotics officer for their roles in the sting, 
which landed roughly one-sixth of the town's black population in jail.

Twenty-three of those arrested remain in prison today.

According to an ACLU statement, the civil suit alleges the deliberate 
targeting and prosecution of the 43 plaintiffs based on their race.

"We think that Tulia is the latest tragedy in the war on drugs," Harrell 
said. "We will prove that [undercover officer] Tom Coleman was a thief, a 
liar and a racist."

District Attorney Terry McEachern, one of three named in the suit, has said 
racial prejudice played no role in the busts, which so far has resulted in 
17 guilty pleas and 11 guilty verdicts.

"If I didn't have complete confidence that the law had not been broken and 
that he was not telling the truth, then I would be the first one to dismiss 
all of these cases," McEachern told The Associated Press.

Tulia, located in the Texas Panhandle near Amarillo, has a population of 
approximately 5,000, of which about 240 or roughly five percent are black. 
Of the 43 arrested in the 1999 drug sting, 40 were black, Harrell said.

Harrell described the Tulia bust as a "gross miscarriage of justice" by 
what he said was the most racially discriminatory state judicial system in 
the country.

"Why is it that Texas prisons are disproportionately black and Latino?" 
Harrell asked the crowd. "Police officers are racially profiling [these 
groups], and we want it to stop."

Surrounded by friends and family of those convicted, the Rev. Charles Kiker 
of Tulia likened the 1999 drug sting to a war against the city's minority 
population, perpetrated by a law enforcement team that allegedly ignored a 
gross lack of evidence in the case.

"The word of a man who did not wear a wire, the word of a man which was 
uncorroborated by any independent evidence, has created 23 prisoners of war 
and about 35 POW orphans," he said, gesturing to the prisoners' children 
who gathered around him as the crowd chanted, "Shame! Shame!"

Among the children from Tulia present Friday were Justice Acy, age 5, 
Shardae Acy, age 9, and Ashley Bournett, age 11. The three are living with 
their grandmother because their mother is in prison as a result of the bust.

Eighteen-year-old Gerrod Ervine, who pled guilty in the bust and received 
10 years probation, called the mass arrest "bogus" and said there could not 
have been 43 drug dealers in Tulia.

"I know there weren't that many dope dealers in a 5,000 population," he 
said. "Who are the dope smokers? If everyone's selling the dope, who's 
smoking the dope?"

Anita Barrow, whose twin sons each received 20 years in prison in the bust, 
said she attended the protest to speak out against what she felt is an 
unfair system.

"I came here because I want to put a stop to it. I want justice done," she 
said.

As they walked to their bus, the sun illuminated words printed on the backs 
of T-shirts they designed for the trip to Austin.

"Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly," the shirts read.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart