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Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Poet who wrote (18574)	7/30/2002 10:23:02 PM
From: E	Respond to of 21057

Some more details, while I'm waiting...excerpts.... TULIA - In the early morning hours of July 23, 1999, dozens of gun-toting officers fanned out through the Panhandle town of Tulia. By nightfall, 16 percent of the town's black population was behind bars. A single narcotics agent, Thomas Rolland Coleman, had scored 132 separate narcotics buys over an 18-month period... Since no one had witnessed Coleman make a single buy, everything hinged on the agent's credibility... Since so little is known about how Coleman spent his time on the mean streets of Tulia, it is fortunate that we know so much about his pre- Tulia and post-Tulia record. Coleman got his start in law enforcement with the Pecos County Sheriff's Department. "His dad was the best and the most honest officer that ever lived," former Sheriff Bruce Wilson told me recently, "but Tom Coleman ain't worth shooting. If I had 20 people in prison on the word of that man, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night." Two weeks after Coleman disappeared from Morton [in Cochrna County] in the middle of a shift, Sheriff Kenneth Burke fired off a stern letter to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. "Mr. Coleman should not be in law enforcement," Burke stated sharply, "if he is going to do people the way he did in this town."... short months into the Tulia sting, Stewart arrested his deputy on a warrant filed in Cochran County. When Coleman assured Stewart that his legal problems had been resolved, the agent was returned to the streets of Tulia where he continued to work without supervision... ..."It is obvious now that we made a mistake," Little admitted recently. "We found out about it, we took the necessary action with respect to his employment, and we hope to not repeat that mistake again." Coleman, reports indicate, was unable to account for task force money when a surprise audit was run. ... Nine months later, a female confidential informant was accusing Coleman of badgering her for sexual favors, even suggesting that he might "loan her out" to other police officers. Claiming to be her husband, Coleman signed a credit application on her behalf using the alias TJ Dawson, the same street name he had employed in Swisher County. Still, Coleman's advances were consistently rebuffed, and he retaliated by betraying the informant to two Waxahachie women she had made cases on. The women, predictably, beat the informant senseless. When her allegations against Coleman came to the attention of the district attorney, she easily passed a polygraph test. Coleman refused the polygraph, turned down a chance to resign gracefully, and was summarily terminated. mapinc.org