Dirty task force tricks in Texas

Okay, it's back to business here. Scott Henson of Grits for Breakfast, checks in with this piece from the Texas Observer tracing the twisted path of the Dogwood Trails Task Force busts in Palestine, Texas. As we discussed earlier here, 72 people were arrested in one tiny town.

When the arrests came two years later, residents of Palestine must have been surprised to learn that their small town apparently had more crack dealers than restaurants. On October 13, teams from the Anderson County sheriff’s office, Texas Department of Public Safety, U.S. Marshall’s Service, and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) started at 7 a.m. and swept through tiny Palestine (population 17,000) to round up an astonishing 40 indicted drug dealers. More arrests followed in the coming days.

The police boasted they had cracked a major drug ring. A subsequent investigation done by the Observer calls that claim into question. They ask, "Could there really be 72 crack dealers in little Palestine? And is it only a coincidence that all 72 of them are black?"

There seemingly were at least a few dealers in town. Four of the defendants who were indicted in federal court were allegedly caught with hundreds of grams of both powdered and crack cocaine, and with stashes of guns and cash. If they were the real dealers, what was everyone else doing? Many of the defendants, a third of them with no prior records, are charged with delivering crack to a single confidential informant. None of the deliveries exceeded four grams. In some instances, it was less than a gram. That’s about the size of a Sweet-N-Low packet. Many of the suspects appear to be poor crack addicts swept up in the drug sting. Charged as dealers, they now face sentences of 20 years to life in state prison.

In a state where drug task force corruption is a way of life, this smells like Tulia all over again. The DA of course defends the indictments and claims to have cleaned up a serious drug problem in the community. Sounds more like he's doing some ethnic cleansing. Many of the defendants face 2-20 years and a few even face life sentences for dealing a few grams of crack. Now I don't condone the use of crack but don't you think that's excessive? And remember your tax dollars are paying for the incarcerations which will ultimately run into hundreds of thousands.

Read the rest of the article here and see if you think the punishment fits the "crime".