Justice Probes Claim of Bias in Drug Busts

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether civil rights were violated in a police drug bust last year that rounded up 40 black people in Tulia, a small, predominantly white Texas farming town. In October, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the department charging the arrests were launched as a matter of “ethnic cleansing of young male blacks.” Of those arrested, 17 have pleaded guilty and 11 have been convicted. Swisher County Dist. Atty. Terry McEachern has denied racial prejudice played any role in the busts.