Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Bill who wrote (18582)	7/31/2002 10:33:03 AM
From: E	Respond to of 21057

LOL

To: Bill who wrote (18582)	8/2/2002 10:28:29 PM
From: E	Respond to of 21057

I just didn't draw any conclusions on the police officer's character, like you did. I don't rely on columnists to teach me who is bad and who is good. You apparently prefer that method. I didn't draw conclusions about a police officer's character based on columnists' "opinions." Here are some facts not disputed in anything you or I have found on the net: None of those arrested had any money to speak of. And when they were arrested, they didn't have any cocaine. No drugs, money or weapons were recovered during the surprise roundup... The arrests were made solely on the word of one officer, Tom Coleman There were no other police officers to corroborate his activities. He did not wear a wire or conduct any video surveillance. And he did not keep detailed records of his alleged drug buys. He said he sometimes wrote such important information as the names of suspects and the dates of transactions on his leg. some of those charged were able to prove they were elsewhere at the times he claimed under oath to have bought drugs from them. (He is, iow, a perjurer, like Clinton, only not about sex.) Coleman was called a "compulsive liar" by former coworkers (not by columnists.) He was described by a sheriff he had worked under (not by a columnist) previously as unfit for law enforcement work. In the middle of the operation he was arrested for theft, but was allowed to continue anyway. This was after he had already committed perjury once. The Texas legislature recently (since Coleman) passed a law the way those people were convicted illegal. Too late to help them. Coleman was recently fired from another narc job in Dallas County, accused of sexually harassing one of his informants , then revealing her name to drug suspects after she refused to give him sex so she was beaten 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. Coleman's questionable past was barred from being raised at the trial, in spite of the fact that the whole case was based on his being honest. Almost uniformly, and VERY surprisingly, Coleman's 100-plus alleged drug buys during 18 months in Tulia were a uniform few grams of powder cocaine, the most expensive form; little crack or marijuana. Every sale was to Coleman directly, none to other parties witnessed by him. And none of the sales to him were witnessed by other parties. Even though many defendants lived in trailer homes or in public housing, almost all the alleged drug sales occurred within 1,000 feet of a school or park -- harvesting long jail-sentence convictions for several defendants and horrible plea bargains for others. [DUMB drug dealers! "Meet me over by the school again. No, let's make it the playground this time!" "Ho-kay! See ya there, same time same place!"] All occurred in the throbbing burg of Tulia itself; not on the outskirts, not in fields, not on the highway. Much of the "cocaine" has turned out to be powdered drywall. Coleman was unable to account for task force money when a surprise audit was run. Former Sheriff Bruce Wilson said the following of Coleman: "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." Another Sheriff, Kenneth Burke, wrote in a letter to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement that "Mr. Coleman should not be in law enforcement..."