Bob Herbert, in Kafka in Tulia, has written a scathing opionion piece for today's New York Times on the unconscionable drug sweeps in Tulia, Texas.

"It is not an overstatement to describe the arrests in Tulia as an atrocity. The entire operation was the work of a single police officer who claimed to have conducted an 18-month undercover operation. The arrests were made solely on the word of this officer, Tom Coleman, a white man with a wretched work history, who routinely referred to black people as "niggers" and who frequently found himself in trouble with the law."

For more on the facts, here's a January 22, 2001 article from the Washington Post, Massive Drug Sweep Divides Texas Town . The Post article quotes the ACLU's description of the undercover operation as "an ethnic cleansing of young male blacks from Tulia."

Although the raids took place in 1999, people are still in jail and needing help. Bob Herbert tells us:

"The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, the Tulia Legal Defense Project and a number of private law firms are trying to mount an effort to free the men and women imprisoned in this fiasco.

The idea that people could be rounded up and sent away for what are effectively lifetime terms solely on the word of a police officer like Tom Coleman is insane. "

The final defendant's case was dismissed on July 24. But 14 more remain in prison and volunteer attorneys are working to get them out.

For even more on this, the ACLU has a list of news articles with links.

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