Summary of A lying undercover agent arrested 46 people, most of them black, on drug charges

00:00:00 - 00:10:00

Tom Coleman was an undercover narcotics officer who was arrested and convicted of perjury after it was revealed that he had lied under oath and falsified evidence in his cases. Coleman's actions led to the conviction of 46 people, most of whom were black, on drug charges. The governor of Texas pardoned them after Coleman was accused of racism.

• 00:00:00 Tom Coleman, an undercover narcotics officer, was arrested and 46 people, most of them black, were convicted of drug charges. The governor of Texas pardoned them after a judge accused Coleman of lying, falsifying evidence, and racism. Coleman, a former rodeo cowboy with a spotty record in law enforcement, was hired by the local sheriff to root out drug dealers in Julia, a desolate farm town of 5,000 people. The money to hire Coleman came from the US Department of Justice, part of a 500 million dollar effort to fight the war on drugs in rural America. Coleman's efforts culminated in the arrest of 13% of the town's adult blacks population. The defendants know when it boils down to it, when it comes to drugs, they handed me the dope and I handed them the money.
• 00:05:00 The video discusses the case of Tom Coleman, an undercover agent who, according to the video, successfully obtained convictions for 46 people, most of whom were black, on drug charges by using only his word and without any evidence. Coleman's success has come despite the fact that some of his cases have fallen apart. One of the jurors in the Tulia trials, Joe Moore, was sentenced to 90 years in prison despite the fact that Coleman's notes of the names, dates, and places of the supposed drug buys did not match those of the other witnesses. Elaine Jones, the head of the N-double A-C-P Legal Defense Fund, spearheaded the effort to free the two Lea defendants, noting that what happened there defied logic.
• 00:10:00 Tom Coleman was hired by a man in Lea, TX, as an undercover police officer, but he was later arrested for lying under oath and for stealing from the town he had previously worked in. The jury found him guilty of perjury and he is set to begin a trial this fall for his crimes. Texas is considering a bill requiring that all undercover drug sting operations have corroborating evidence before a defendant can be prosecuted.