Lee Hockstader of The Washington Post on 13 Imprisoned in Tulia Drug Sweep To Be Freed Today:
It began one sultry summer morning four years ago, just before dawn, when masked police officers swept through the poorest neighborhoods of this sun-stunned rural town in northern Texas arresting dozens of people on drug charges. By the time they were done, about a tenth of Tulia’s tiny black population was in jail and the town had been ripped to pieces.
In a perfect world, this travesty would never have occured. In a fair world, Thomas Coleman the lying sack of shit who orchestrated this outrage, would have to serve the combined sentences for which these individuals were to be imprisoned. But we don’t live in a perfect or fair world. I’ll be surprised if he gets even as much as 10 years on the perjury charges. He deserves no less than life without parole for what he has done.
Lives have been ruined and innocent people imprisoned on the sheer weight of one shithead cop’s word and a prosecution hell-bent on getting their names in the paper. However, the cop isn’t the only one responsible. Those on the planning end of the prosecution have a lot to answer for as well. Far too many government lawyers are content to live with the question “can I convict” instead of asking “is this person guilty.”
All involved with this disgusting perversion of justice should lose their freedom. Anything less would compound this travesty.