A second Houston police officer has been charged with murder and is one of additional officers who have been indicted as part of an ongoing investigation into a Houston Police Department narcotics unit after a deadly 2019 drug raid, prosecutors announced Monday.
Overall, a dozen officers attached into the narcotics unit have been indicted following their job came under scrutiny after the January 2019 drug raid in which Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas, 58, were killed.
“The consequences of corruption are two innocent common people were murdered in their houses, four police officers were shot, one of them paralyzed and all them will confront Harris County jurors who can decide their destiny,” said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
If convicted, he faces up to life in prison, Ogg said.
Rusty Hardin, an attorney for Gallegos, declined to comment on the case Monday.
Five other officers were indicted Monday for their roles in an alleged scheme to steal overtime payments as part of the job together with all the narcotics squad.
Three of the officers — Oscar Pardo, Cedell Lovings and Nadeem Ashraf — confront first degree felony charges of engaging in organized criminal activity linked to theft of a public servant and tampering with a governmental record. They face up to life in prison if convicted.
Two other officers — Frank Medina and Griff Maxwell — face second-degree felonies on these same fees and could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Ogg said grand jurors on Monday also indicted three retired officers who were indicted last year on distinct charges in relation to the case. Two of those officers — Clemente Reyna and Thomas Wood — were indicted on first degree felony charges of engaging in organized criminal activity related to theft of a public servant and tampering with a governmental document. The third retired officer — Hodgie Armstrong — has been indicted on second-degree felonies on these very same charges.
Two former associates of this unit — Gerald Goines and Steven Bryant — had been charged in state and federal court in the case, including two counts of felony murder filed in state court from Goines.
Prosecutors allege their analysis discovered the indicted officers were part of a unit that falsified documentation regarding medication payments to confidential informants, routinely used false information for search warrants, and lied in police reports.
Prosecutors have accused Goines of lying to get the warrant to look for the home belonging to Tuttle and Nicholas. Goines claimed a confidential informant had bought heroin at the house. However, the informant told researchers no such medication buy ever occurred, authorities said. Police discovered small amounts of cocaine and marijuana at the house, but no heroin.
When officers entered the home utilizing a”no-knock” warrant which didn’t require them to declare themselves before entering, they were met with gunfire. Friends of Tuttle and Nicholas say they were not criminals and have suggested that the few might have believed they were attacked by intruders.
Five officers, including Goines, were injured in the raid.
In a statement Monday, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo blamed the faulty search warrant on Goines and Bryant and stated the other officers, such as Gallegos,”reacted appropriately to the deadly threat posed to them through (the warrant’s) service.”
The union has called the charges against the former officials a political ploy from Ogg.
Attorneys for family members of Tuttle and Nicholas have conducted their own evaluation of the raid and have been battling the city and police department in court over requests for records and depositions of agency officials.
“These most recent indictments confirm a few of the findings in the households’ separate investigation, and yet again raises two concerns: how large does the corruption of (the narcotics group ) proceed and why has the town and (Houston authorities ) fought so hard, nevertheless, to hide the basic truth about what occurred before, during and following the murderous raid?” Michael Doyle, one of the Nicholas family attorneys, said in a statement.
Since the raid, prosecutors have been reviewing tens of thousands of cases managed by the narcotics unit.
Over 160 drug convictions tied to Goines have been dismissed by prosecutors.
A study made public in July of this narcotics unit found that officers often weren’t thorough in their investigations and overpaid informants for the seizure of endless amounts of medication.
