The Tulia Sting
The nightmare began in the early morning hours of July 23, 1999. Before dawn, Tulia, Texas, police arrested 46 men and women in the biggest drug bust in Swisher County ‘s history. The “Tulia 46,” as they became known, were rousted from their beds in the before dawn and taken to jail while still in their pajamas.
Thirty-nine of those arrested were black, approximately 10 percent of Tulia’s small, black population. The remaining seven were whites and Hispanics who had ties to the black community. From the beginning the families of the defendants believed that the drug bust was racially motivated. They just couldn’t prove it, at least not yet.
However, Tom Coleman, the agent who single-handedly carried out the 18-month sting, vehemently denied race had anything to do with the takedown. According to Leeann Kossey’s I-Team Interview, Coleman, 42, said that he wasn’t prejudiced against black people, “or any other origin of person.” He claimed he was just doing his job, that of weeding out the town’s criminal element.
Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart and Lt. Mike Amos of the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force hired Coleman in January 1998 to conduct an undercover drug operation. In preparation for the sting, he assumed a new identity by growing his hair long, changing his style of dress from clean-cut cowboy to biker and using the alias T.J. Dawson. He then set about going undercover in the town’s poor black community.
While incognito, Coleman claimed that he was able to gain the trust and friendship of many within Tulia’s black population. According to Tom Mongold’s article “The Rogue Cop of Tulia, Texas,” Coleman suggested that some actually felt comfortable enough with him that they sold him drugs, such as cocaine and crack, when he said he wanted to get high. Mongold said that he used the clever excuse of being on probation and subject to urine tests to avoid taking drugs in front of people.
Every time Coleman scored a bag of powdered cocaine or other drug, he would turn it into his superiors who then gave him money to make more drug buys. In total, Coleman claimed to have made more than 100 purchases from Tulia residents. The sting eventually earned Coleman an award for “Outstanding Lawman of the Year” and most of the town’s white citizens hailed him as a hero.
However, the town’s black community was devastated by the arrests. Most of “Tulia’s 46” received extremely harsh sentences ranging from three to 434 years in prison. According to Nate Blakeslee’s article “Color of Justice,” “the disproportionate number of African-Americans targeted by the operation” led to an NAACP investigation of the cases. Moreover, defense attorneys representing those convicted, conducted their own investigation into Coleman’s background. What they learned was surprising.
Details emerged that Coleman’s investigative methods were at least highly dubious. Moreover, his credibility was also thrown into question when it was learned that he had a criminal history and a reputation as a liar and bigot. Civil rights activists believed that the sting operation led by Coleman was in fact a scheme to rid the community of the black population. The more informed people became about Coleman, the sting and the trials of those arrested, the more it became increasingly clear that Tulia had a huge scandal on their hands.
From an early age, Coleman had aspirations of working in law enforcement. It was likely that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, Joe Coleman, who was a highly respected Texas Ranger in Pecos County. It was a dream he strived for throughout most of his adult life.
According to a 2001 Amarillo News article by Greg Cunningham, Coleman’s first law enforcement job began in the mid-1980s when he was hired as a jailer in Reeves County, Texas, shortly after passing his high school equivalency test. After several years, he quit his job when he was offered a better position as a deputy in Pecos County. At the time, he was married and had a son, whom he was struggling to support. Over the years he accrued massive debts that he was unable to repay and in 1994 Coleman abruptly fled from the town with his family.
The family moved to Denton County where Coleman found work as a jailer. The job paid little and he found himself once again strapped for money. The financial burden caused tremendous problems within his marriage, which eventually led to the couple’s breakup. Later that same year, while in the midst of a divorce, Coleman walked out on his job with no notice. During Kossey’s interview with Coleman, he claimed that he quit because, “his soon to be ex-wife was threatening to ruin his career” by sending restraining orders to his workplace.
Coleman then moved to Cochran County, where Sheriff Ken Burke hired him as deputy sheriff. While there, he continued to add to his financial problems by running up approximately $6,700 in debts, which he was unable to pay off. In 1996, after only 11 months on the job, Coleman again abruptly left town without paying back the money he owed.
Coleman moved to the Odessa area, where he found a temporary job at a pipe company. At the time, he tried to apply for a job at the local police department but was turned down because of accusations that he stole government gasoline from Cochran County and abused his position by failing to repay money he owed to local merchants. Coleman realized that his financial problems were obstructing him from achieving his dream and he set about looking for a more effective way to pay off his debts.
In the meantime, his ex-employer Sheriff Burke wrote a letter to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement stating his views about Coleman’s conduct. In the letter, he explained how Coleman abruptly left his job with no notice, leaving behind massive debts. According to Mongold, he also said, “Mr. Coleman should not be in law enforcement if he is going to do people the way he did in this town.”
However, despite the letter, alleged background checks and a blemished reputation, Coleman was able to get a job when he applied for the position of a narcotics agent in Tulia in the late-1990s. Mongold claimed that Sheriff Larry Stewart hired him because he was “so impressed with his father’s background and Coleman’s own demeanor that he hired him without bothering to ask too many questions.”
Not long after he was hired, Coleman took on the undercover assignment with the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force, who supplied federal grant money to fund the drug operation. Just five months into the Tulia sting, Coleman learned that his previous employer had an arrest warrant against him for stealing gas and abuse of power for failing to repay his debts. Sheriff Stewart had no choice but to arrest his new narcotics agent.
To avoid disrupting the ongoing drug operation, Stewart decided not to fire Coleman. Instead, he gave him one week off to organize his affairs and pay off what he owed. If he did, all the charges would be dismissed and he would be allowed to continue with the investigation. Coleman followed through and paid up. He then promptly returned to the work at hand, that of infiltrating Tulia’s black community and buying drugs from those he allegedly befriended.
During the operation, Coleman used unconventional methods to compile evidence. He didn’t wear a wire to tape any of the alleged drug deals, he never took fingerprints and he worked completely alone. The only evidence that the drug deals took place were the bags of drugs he purported to have bought that contained a minute quantity of cocaine, notes he had taken of the transactions, which he wrote on his arm and leg, and his word of honor, as far as that went.
Nevertheless, despite the lack of corroborating evidence, he was able to secure arrest warrants for the “Tulia 46,” most of who were set to spend the better part of their lives behind bars. Coleman had no regrets. When interviewed by Kossey, he said “I believe we did everything right in Tulia, everything. I don’t think there is anyone in jail that don’t deserve to be there.” However, there were many who disagreed with Coleman and his methods. More people than he likely ever imagined.
One of the first people tried in Tulia for purportedly dealing drugs to Coleman was Joe Welton Moore, 60. Moore, a diabetic hog farmer, had previously spent time behind bars for two felony convictions involving possession of cocaine. Kossey said that he is one of four arrested in the sting that had a prior conviction. He was accused of selling Coleman an eight-ball of powdered cocaine on two separate occasions.
According to Ed Bradley’s CBS News article “Targeted in Tulia, Texas?,” Moore was described as the “drug kingpin of Tulia.” He was tried in December 1999 and found guilty on both counts by a predominantly white Tulia jury. He eventually received one of the harshest sentences, 99 years in a state prison. His sentence was extreme because he was said to have sold the drugs within 1,000 feet of a school, which is a first-degree felony in Texas.
Probably one of the hardest hit in the drug sting was the White family. Mattie White, a 50-year-old state prison correctional officer and divorced mother of six, had three of her children, one niece, two nephews and a son-in-law arrested for allegedly selling drugs to Coleman. With her children in jail, she and her ex-husband took on the responsibility of caring for their grandchildren. She had to take on another job just to clothe and feed them.
Jennifer Gonnerman wrote in her article “Tulia Blues,” the first of Mattie’s children to be tried was her son Donnie Smith, 30, “a former Tulia High football star” who had struggled with a crack cocaine addiction, but had been clean for half a year before his arrest. During his March 2000 trial, Coleman claimed that Donnie sold him crack and powdered cocaine on six separate occasions. Donnie received 12 years in a state prison on a plea bargain.
Donnie’s sister, Kizzie White, 24, went on trial one month later. Kizzie, a mother of two children aged three and six, was accused of selling Coleman cocaine and marijuana. Even though she initially professed her innocence, it was Coleman’s word against hers. In order to escape a harsh sentence she accepted a plea bargain, yet received a 25-year prison sentence anyways.
Her husband, William Cash Love, fared far worse. He was found guilty of selling Coleman an ounce of crack cocaine. He received a whopping 434 years in prison, the most severe sentence handed down. Blakeslee said that William, “a young white man who spent his entire life in the company of blacks, and who married a black woman, was singled out to send a message about his lifestyle choice.” The sentences were devastating for William and his wife, Kizzie, who feared they would never get the chance to see their children grow up.
Mattie’s youngest son, Kareem Abdul Jabbar White, 24, was tried in September 2000. During the court proceedings, Coleman’s credibility was vigorously attacked after he gave conflicting statements during his testimony concerning who was present during the alleged drug deal. Moreover, according to Doug Caddy’s Amarillo Globe-News article, four witnesses for the defense team, including a prosecutor and a former sheriff, testified that Coleman was a liar. Regardless, the jury found Kareem guilty for selling cocaine to Coleman. He received 60 years in prison.
Surprisingly, Kareem’s older sister Tonya, 33, was accused of selling cocaine to Coleman even though she lived in Shreveport, LA, at the time of the alleged drug deal. When she learned that there was a warrant out for her arrest, she laid low for two years, hoping to avoid a prison sentence for something she knew she didn’t do. The entire time she lived in fear of suffering the same fate as her siblings.
In September 2000, Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo criminal defense lawyer who specialized in civil rights cases offered to handle Tonya’s unusual case pro bono. He was outraged at the events that took place in Tulia and wanted to make sure that the imprisonments, which he deemed unlawful, were put to an end. During his investigation into Tonya’s case, he learned that at the time Coleman claimed she was making a drug deal to him, Tonya was at an Oklahoma City bank withdrawing $8 in cash. Luckily, the bank noted the transaction and Blackburn was able to obtain the receipt, as well as a deposit slip for money she deposited on the same day.
Tonya returned home to Tulia to face the charges in the spring of 2002, hoping that the evidence was enough to clear her name. She faced a 99-year sentence for purportedly selling Coleman 4 grams of cocaine, approximately 1,000 feet from a playground. The charge was considered to be a first-degree felony.
When Blackburn presented the evidence at her trial that April, the jury had no choice but to dismiss the charges. A 2002 Houston Chronicle article by Jeannie Kever suggested that chief prosecutor, District Attorney Terry McEachern, didn’t believe that the deposit slip was “absolute proof,” yet it created enough doubt to not go through with the case. According to Leeann Kossey’s article “White Gains Freedom,” Blackburn said about Coleman, “This is not a blow to his credibility, this is an eliminator of his credibility.” Tonya’s case was a significant milestone, throwing Coleman’s reputation and investigative methods used in the Tulia sting operation into serious doubt and into the national spotlight.
Tulia, a small, declining farming community with a population of a little more than 5,000 residents, was an unlikely place to find such a well-organized and prosperous drug-ring. Many of the black residents lived at the lower end of the socio-economic level, earning an average of $9,000 to $11,000 a year. Even though they earned relatively meager incomes, most had rich family lives and a strong sense of faith and community.
This being the case, it was difficult to imagine that a tenth of Tulia’s black population was swept up in drug dealing. What was even more surprising was that they were allegedly dealing cocaine, one of the most expensive drugs on the black market. Donnie Smith asked the questions that were on everyone’s mind, “Where’s the drugs, where’s the big houses, where all the gold teeth?” The fact was that there wasn’t sufficient evidence of drug dealing, nor was there adequate evidence to secure the convictions. It was just Coleman’s word against the defendants and in most cases his word prevailed.
Consequently, 38 of the “Tulia 46” were imprisoned or serving probation on drug related charges, whereas the eight remaining cases, including Tonya White’s, were eventually dismissed. It was clear that the problem was not just with Coleman, but also with the entire judicial system. It was up to a small group of lawyers and several organizations from across the country to right the wrongs that devastated Tulia’s black community and threatened the civil rights of an entire nation.
Jeff Blackburn, who represented Tonya White, formed the Tulia Legal Defense Project (TLDP) whose aim was to organize the release of all the defendants who were sentenced to jail. According to a 2003 Court TV interview with Donna McKenna, Blackburn said that the group was made up of a small group of local pro-bono lawyers who joined forces with the Kuntsler Fund for Racial Justice, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and attorneys from the law firms of Hogan and Hartson and Wilmer, and Cutler and Pickering. The team’s first move was to initiate new hearings and attack Coleman’s credibility and investigative methods.
Lawyers for the TLDP immediately filed appeals and motions asking for new trials for the defendants. It took several years but finally in 2003 they were granted new hearings, which involved a review of four of the 46 cases including that of Freddie Brookins Jr., Jason Willams, Christopher Jackson and Joe Moore. If they could present a strong argument, they had a shot at getting new trials for the four defendants. Moreover, if things worked the way they hoped, they would also get new trials for the rest of the people indicted in the Tulia drug operation.
Blackburn was pleased with the outcome. Kossey quoted him as saying that they were, “going to get a chance for the first time to talk about how these trials were conducted, what was done wrong, what lead to these convictions [and] why did these juries do what they did.” The hearings to review the 4 cases were set for that March.
On March 17, spectators filled Swisher County Courthouse hoping that they would finally get a chance to see justice prevail. According to Blakslee’s article “Free at Last?” the trial court had the specific charge of determining “whether the prosecution had failed to turn over damaging information about Coleman to defense attorneys.” The defense team, who had long prepared for the event, selected several key witnesses to testify during the week-long hearing. Among them was, Coleman, Pecos County District Attorney Ori White (no relation to Tonya White or family), former Pecos County Sheriff Bruce Wilson and Sheriff Larry Stewart.
The first called to testify for the defense was Ori White. White had previously represented Coleman’s wife during their divorce in the late 1980s. During his testimony, he suggested that Coleman was a dishonest individual. Adam Liptak quoted White in a March 2003 article stating, “Coleman owned an illegal machine gun and that he so feared for his safety in the divorce case that he wore a bulletproof vest to court.”
Following White’s testimony, Sheriff Wilson was called to the stand. He also provided valuable information about Coleman’s character. He claimed that Coleman threatened two women in the town of Iraan and he had a tape recording of the incident. Wilson also said that Coleman harassed a teenager in the same town by pulling him over several times a day on numerous occasions. Moreover, he suggested that his former deputy was not dependable.
Another key witness that took the stand was Coleman’s previous employer, Sheriff Stewart. Stewart testified that when he arrested Coleman for theft and abuse of power, Coleman seemed unaware of the charges against him. However, the defense presented strong evidence that Coleman indeed knew about the charges well before he was arrested. They showed Stewart a waiver signed by Coleman four months prior to the arrest in which he acknowledged the charges against him. The evidence proved to be damaging to the state’s case.
Judge Ron Chapman, who presided over the hearing, also heard the testimony of other law enforcement officers who provided even more insight into Coleman’s character and reputation. Some of those who testified claimed that Coleman was racist, irresponsible, dishonest and paranoid. Despite contrary evidence presented by the state, the defense was able to successfully establish Coleman’s notorious reputation as a rogue cop. It was further facilitated by Coleman’s own testimony later that week.
When Coleman took the stand, defense attorney Mitch Zamoff questioned him about the waiver he signed concerning the theft and abuse of power charges against him. Coleman claimed that at the time he signed the waiver it was blank and that he was unaware of the warrant issued for his arrest. According to Blakeslee’s article, Coleman said that he signed the waiver “because he thought trouble might be coming and it would save his lawyer from having to find him in Tulia.”
Coleman also testified that his lawyer, who was hired at the time the charges were filed, never told him about the arrest warrant. However, the defense had evidence that proved otherwise. They showed Coleman a letter written by his lawyer, which discussed at length the charges against him. Yet, Coleman claimed that he never received it.
Defense attorneys also asked Coleman if he was prejudiced. Coleman vehemently denied that he was racist, although he admitted to using the word “nigger” on many occasions when referring to black people. He also suggested that he casually used the derogatory word when greeting friends and family.
During further questioning by the defense, Coleman continued to dig himself deeper and deeper into a hole. Before Coleman even got a chance to finish his testimony, the Judge Chapman adjourned the hearings. According to the CBS News article “38 Drug Cases Thrown into Question,” Chapman later announced that “Tom Coleman is simply not a credible witness under oath.”
In a surprise move, Chapman recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant new trials to the 4 defendants. The prosecution agreed to the motion and said that they would dismiss the charges if the appeals court approved of the judgment. Even though the defendants had to return to jail until the matter was settled, they had newfound hope that they would one day soon be released.
In April 2003, Coleman was indicted on three counts of aggravated perjury by a Swisher County grand jury for lying under oath. At the time of his indictment, a majority of the defendants cases had been dismissed or on probation. However, 14 of “Tulia’s 46” still remained in jail even though Chapman recommended that the all the cases be thrown out. Yet, those who were imprisoned would not languish behind bars for much longer.
That June, a bill signed by Texas Governor Rick Perry passed through legislature, which allowed 11 men and a woman to be freed from prison on their own recognizance, pending appeals. Two other defendants remained incarcerated because one faced drug charges in another county and the other’s bail was pending on a direct appeal. Phil Magers’ 2003 United Press International article, quoted Blanca Labord, the general counsel for Senator John Whitmire saying that the senator, “felt it was unconscionable that they [the defendants] remain in prison when everybody including the prosecutor, the judge and the defense lawyers-had agreed that it was a travesty of justice for them to remain incarcerated when the only witness against them had been completely discredited and indicted for perjury.” The senator was one of several lawmakers that passed another bill through legislation in 2001, known as the “Tulia Law” that prohibited convicting a felon based on the sole evidence of an undercover agent. It was clear that the defendants were finally on their way to receiving the justice they had long awaited.
In August, Governor Perry granted full pardons to 35 of the defendants convicted in the Tulia drug sting. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s article “Bad Times in Tulia, TX,” Vanita Gupta, a staff attorney for the organization, was quoted as saying that the pardons were “a huge victory in these cases” commending the governor for “doing the right thing.” However, the battle was not yet over.
That same month, two of the former defendants, Tonya White and Zuri Bossett filed a 40-page federal lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Amarillo seeking monetary damages for civil rights violations. The lawsuit was directed at the officials responsible for the sting operation, including Coleman, Swisher County, Sheriff Larry Stewart, prosecutor Terry McEachern and several other task force officials. As a result of the lawsuit, Swisher County authorities agreed to pay a settlement of $250,000 to the defendants in exchange for immunity from further lawsuits. McKenna quoted Blackburn who said that the money was merely, “a down payment” to be “paid in exchange only for releasing Swisher County and its employees from further liability.” It was by no means the final settlement to be paid to the defendants.
In March 2004, the City of Amarillo decided to once and for all put an end to the Tulia affair. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the city agreed to:
Pay $5 million in damages to the 45 former Tulia defendants (one person died shortly after conviction and did not collect damages);
Disband the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force that it established to oversee the sting operation; and
Require early retirement for two Amarillo Police Department officers who were responsible for supervising the sting’s sole undercover agent, Tom Coleman.
In Adam Liptak’s 2004 New York Times article, Jeff Blackburn was quoted saying that, “This is undoubtedly that last major chapter in the Tulia story, and this will conclude the efforts of people in Tulia to get some compensation and justice.” Liptak stated that the money would be divided amongst all of the defendants, “based on a formula that will take into account whether they served time in prison and how long.” Tulia’s black community and the attorney’s who represented them were pleased with the final outcome. They had finally triumphed after a long battle.
In the meantime, Tulia residents await Coleman’s trial, which was initially scheduled for May 24, 2004. However, a judge has granted a continuance and no new date has yet been set. If he is found guilty of the three counts of perjury, he could receive up to 10 years in prison. Many of those previously convicted hope that justice moves swiftly in Coleman’s case. They want to be sure that what happened in Tulia will never occur again.