Dallas Drug Case A Disgrace

Ruben Navarrette Jr.

DALLAS -- Most Americans probably can't calculate what their freedom is worth. Not so the Mexican immigrants and legal residents who, despite their innocence, were locked up for weeks and months in the Dallas Police Department's infamous fake drug scandal. For them, their freedom was worth exactly $1,000 per kilogram.

Think of it as a finder's fee. The Dallas Police Department was so eager for Enrique Alonzo, a former drug dealer who had turned informant, to help narcotics officers find big-time drug dealers that it was willing to pay him a fee of $1,000 per kilo of confiscated drugs.

Finding drug lords was no problem for the 46-year-old native of Laredo, Mexico. Alonzo testified this week that he knew real drug dealers. Of course, he also knew that such people wouldn't hesitate to arrange a slow and painful death for anyone they suspected of working with police to deprive them of their freedom.

What Alonzo, who pleaded guilty to civil rights violations and then agreed to cooperate with federal authorities, needed to launch the enterprise was harmless patsies on which he could plant drugs for police to find. Oh, and real drugs being so expensive and all, and Dallas narcotics officers being so sloppy in testing evidence, Alonzo figured he could make more money with less risk by passing off as cocaine a substance as common as billiard chalk.

That's what came out this week during the initial round of arguments in the first -- and probably the last -- criminal trial in this case.

Sitting at the defendant's table is ex-Dallas police detective Mark Delapaz, a former overachiever in the department's narcotics division. Think of Delapaz as a fall guy for an embarrassed criminal justice system in North Texas that won't admit that responsibility for the scandal -- or at least for allowing it to continue as long as it did -- stretches far and wide. Thanks to an interminable FBI investigation, Delapaz is the only law enforcement official facing federal charges of violating people's civil rights and lying -- on arrest warrants, to prosecutors and to a federal agent investigating the scandal.

But, behind these dozens of fake drug cases, there is the brass at the Dallas Police Department who either didn't do a good enough job of supervising their officers or -- worse -- tried to bury the scandal once it came into view. There are also prosecutors, judges, juries and even defense attorneys who were willing to go along with the idea that the Mexican defendants were guilty in light of scant evidence.

Let's not forget that last year, after more than 80 drug cases were dismissed, Dallas District Attorney Bill Hill went on ABC News' "Nightline" and arrogantly insisted that many of those released were in fact guilty.

Now that wouldn't have anything to do with popular stereotypes about what drug dealers look like, would it?

You have to hand it to Alonzo. This undocumented immigrant with a fifth-grade education devised a brilliant scheme fueled by greed and glory. He and the rest of his five-man crew would get their finder's fees. The drug cops would get the headlines, pay raises and promotions that came with racking up drug busts. And prosecutors would get to put away bad guys to show taxpayers that they were tough on crime, which paved the way for more pay raises and promotions.

The only downside -- dozens of innocents wrongfully imprisoned in a country whose founders staged a revolution and conceived a Bill of Rights to prevent such things from happening.

Note that the main reason it happened in this case was not, as Latino activists like to think, because Mexican immigrants were abused by an Anglo power structure or forgotten by city officials reluctant to hold accountable an incompetent police department. This was a case of Mexican immigrants savagely preying on other Mexican immigrants. From there, the scandal took on a life of its own. But regrettably, that's how it started.

How it ends will speak volumes about the integrity of our justice system and our thirst for fair play. In a federal courthouse in downtown Dallas, a lowly ex-cop is the one on the hot seat. But for everyone watching -- especially the handful of victims who are taking time off from work to monitor proceedings unfolding in a language they barely understand -- we are all on trial.

Ruben Navarrette's e-mail address is rnavarrette@dallasnews.com.