Famous Texas Law Enforcement Discrimination Cases
Tulia, Texas: In the summer of 1999, 46 people were arrested in a drug sting in the tiny town of Tulia, population 5,000. Most of those arrested were African-American. All of the arrests were based entirely on the word of a single undercover deputy police officer, Tom Coleman, who had been charged with stealing thousands of dollars of merchandise at his previous job in another Texas county. When Tulia authorities discovered Coleman's criminal charges, they hid the fact so as not to jeopardize the drug prosecutions. The defendants were sentenced to as long as 99-year prison terms for selling cocaine. Coleman's lies about the drug deals were eventually exposed and discredited, and the convicted Tulians were pardoned and released from Texas prisons. But the town remains scarred by the experience.
Hearne, Texas: The story of Regina Kelly, a young black mother of four in Hearne, Texas, inspired an award-winning Hollywood movie called American Violet. Kelly was among 27 residents — all but one of whom were black — arrested for selling cocaine in the fall of 2000. The charges were based upon the testimony of a single informant, who framed the victims by scraping bits of his own stash of crack cocaine into white chalk so that it would test positive. Still, several defendants pleaded guilty in return for probation to avoid the possibility of a long prison sentence. The ACLU filed suit against the local district attorney and the South Central Texas Narcotics Task Force for conducting repeated racially motivated raids. The suit was eventually settled and the criminal charges dismissed against those who had not already pleaded guilty.
Dallas Fake Drug Scandal: Initially celebrated as the largest drug bust in Dallas County history, the case ultimately led to the dismissal of more than 80 drug cases after a story broken by WFAA-TV. Like the Hearne case, these drug cases were based on the testimony of police informants. But in Dallas, the targets were Mexican immigrants, many of whom were working as auto mechanics or day laborers. Despite their modest jobs, these defendants were accused of dealing huge amounts of cocaine. One man was charged with having more than 176 pounds of the high-priced drug. But the cocaine found was actually powdered sheet rock that had been planted by police informants who were conspiring with Dallas narcotics officers to frame the defendants. Drug-buy money went missing. Six police officers were implicated; three informants and two officers were eventually convicted in the scandal; and the Dallas district attorney’s office was accused of prosecuting drug cases it knew were bad.
— Wade Goodwyn