Tulia

How the war on drugs went awry in Tulia, Texas

In 1999, 46 Tulia residents, most of them African-American, were arrested in a drug raid. Many who were convicted early on were given sentences ranging from 20 to a staggering 90 years, and some of the frightened people who had been picked up in the drug bust pleaded guilty to avoid spending the rest of their lives in jail.

These men and women went to jail on the uncorroborated word of Tom Coleman, an undercover cop whose résumé and methods turned out to be problematic. A judge later called Coleman’s testimony in a Tulia-related case “extremely devious.”