How will they get their reputations back??? Innocent men charged!!!

Bluebear

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Fri Apr-13-07 04:41 AM
Original message

How will they get their reputations back??? Innocent men charged!!!

For those not familiar with Tulia, Texas, a little history lesson so we may never forget. This happened barely eight years ago.

=====

http://www.theage.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1046540070101_2003/03/02/03ROGUE,0.jpg
Tom Coleman

Tulia gained notoriety following a drug sting in July 1999 that rounded up 46 people, forty of whom were African Americans. The remaining detainees were white people known to have ties within the black community, and in fact lived in the black part of town. Nearly one in two of Tulia's black males were arrested, about 15% of the town's black population. All charges were based on the word of undercover officer Tom Coleman, a so called "gypsy cop" who made his living travelling through impoverished rural Texas offering to work undercover cheaply for short periods of time for underfunded police departments. Coleman claimed to have made over one hundred drug buys in the small town, essentially an impossible feat for an undercover officer working alone. He never recorded any of the sales, but claimed to have written painstaking notes on his leg under his shorts and upper arm under his shirt sleeve when nobody was looking.

Undercover agent Tom Coleman, center, and Swisher County Texas law officials take a break after a drug sting sweep in July 1999 in Tulia, Texas

During the roundup, no large sums of money, illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, or illegal weapons were found. The accused drug dealers showed no signs of having any income associated with selling drugs. The drugs Coleman claimed to have bought from the accused did not have the fingerprints of the accused on them or their baggies. No independent witnesses could corrobarate Coleman's claims. In his testimony, Coleman gave inaccurate descriptions of the "dealers" he had allegedly bought cocaine from. One suspect had his charges dropped when he was able to prove he had been at work during the times he had supposedly sold Coleman cocaine. Another produced bank and phone records indicating she was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at the time of her alleged crime. Many of the accused, however, seeing the long sentences dealt out by all-white juries in the earliest cases, pled guilty in return for lesser sentences, despite their proclaimed innocence. The remaining defendants were convicted solely on the basis of Coleman's testimony. The state attorney general, John Cornyn, awarded Coleman a prize for being "Lawman of the Year."

Eventually the case became a cause c�l�bre, and money was raised to legally challenge the cases. Many had already served several years in prison when this process got down to business. By 2004, most of the "Tulia 46" had been freed, and a $6,000,000 collective settlement was reached to avoid further litigation in civil court. Local authorities remain defiant, promising their town will not become a "slot machine" in the face of a new lawsuit stemming from an incident of police brutality during the sweep by a man who was not charged.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulia