Yesterday Amber sent me a New York Times article about the latest development in a shocking story from Texas that she’s been following for quite some time:

46 people, almost all of them black, were arrested on fabricated drug charges in Tulia, Tex., their ordeal will draw to a close today with the announcement of a $5 million settlement in their civil suit and the disbandment of a federally financed 26-county narcotics task force responsible for the arrests.

The impact of the piece is undermined somewhat by journalistic hyperbole:

The case attracted national attention because the number of people charged literally decimated the small town’s black population.

Now that is rough justice. To “decimate” means to punish a population by killing every tenth man.