HPD policy changes are not enough
Chief Acevedo needs to release the audit of the narcotics division as soon as possible.
More than a year after the botched Harding Street raid, which left two people dead and five officers wounded, we still don’t know the full extent of the rot in the Houston Police Department.
Chief Art Acevedo is convinced that it’s a case of a bad apple infecting an otherwise air-tight department. But as Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg’s review of cases tainted by former Houston narcotics officer Gerald Goines expands, that’s increasingly difficult to accept. The chief needs to do more than give us his word.
He can start by releasing to the public the department’s now-completed audit of HPD’s narcotics division. It should be clear by now that the taint on the department due to the botched raid is so large that only radical transparency can restore its standing and regain the public trust.
Goines stands accused of lying on affidavits to put innocent people in jail. He has been charged with two counts of felony murder as a result of the raid. Already, the revelations have profoundly shaken faith in not just the police but also the entire Harris County criminal justice system.
Prosecutors dismissed dozens of active criminal cases and announced a review of more than 14,000 past cases handled by Goines and other members of the narcotics squad. Ogg said 69 defendants convicted based solely on Goines’ testimony might have their cases overturned.
Two brothers whose convictions relied on Goines’ casework have been declared actually innocent. Otis and Steven Mallet, who were arrested in 2008, were convicted and sent to jail.
Ogg said defendants whose convictions between 2008 and 2019 relied in substantial part on Goines’ involvement would be entitled to a presumption the former Houston police officer provided false evidence.
“Justice dictates that we continue going through questionable cases and clearing people convicted solely on the word of a police officer we can no longer trust,” Ogg said in a statement. “When the only evidence of criminal culpability is the testimony of an untrustworthy officer, we are going to work as fast as possible to right the situation.”
Every case Goines touched is now suspect and should automatically be subject to review. That would be a major step toward rebuilding the trust shattered by Goines’ misconduct.
But the real fixes start inside HPD and with Acevedo, who needs to scrutinize his department with an unblinking eye and determine how Goines was allowed to get away with unscrupulous behavior for so long.
Acevedo has made a start in that direction with a series of changes such as ordering narcotics officers to wear body cameras and the creation of a new unit to carry out high-risk warrants. Last week, he announced reforms that include tighter oversight and signoff from supervisors for narcotics operations, stricter controls on confidential informants and payments, and requiring high-level approval for “noknock” raids.
But Acevedo has yet to release the results of a completed audit of the narcotics unit. The chief told the Editorial Board that he is waiting until the ongoing criminal and federal cases against Goines are complete.
“The important thing to remember is that our No. 1 responsibility is to justice for the individuals involved here,” Acevedo said, referring to Rhogena Nicholas and
Dennis Tuttle, the homeowners killed in the Harding Street raid.
He is right. Nicholas and Tuttle deserve justice. But so do the many others who are harmed by police misconduct — good cops who will have to endure heightened scrutiny and reduced trust, people who rely on and are in danger from a tainted department and defendants such as the Mallet brothers who were convicted on false evidence.
Acevedo should release the audit results as soon as possible. He must look at wider reforms and investigate the role that race plays in arrests and policing. (An analysis by The Appeal, a criminal justice-focused news outlet, found that in 591 cases in which Goines was the main officer, 94 percent of the defendants were black.) Acevedo also needs to admit that the failings in HPD may not be limited to one “rogue cop” — something he refused to consider in our interview with him.
“This is isolated and not reflective of the overall character and integrity of this department,” Acevedo told us, saying that investigations have looked at a “wide spectrum” of HPD employees and the cases they worked and found no broader pattern.
It’s one thing for the chief to say that’s true, and another to say it and then back it up with a detailed report of what the auditors found.
Corruption is a cancer that rarely stays put. Removing one crooked officer is important. For HPD to move past this scandal, and restore public trust, we have to be sure no malignancy remains.
“People’s freedom is being lost because of this,” says Jay Jenkins, a Houston-based policy attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition.
Goines spent years in the narcotics division. He trained people who are now midlevel supervisors. If Acevedo won’t make the audit of the department public, then it will be time for a new, independent audit of the department.