HPD to limit no-knock warrants
Furious crowd at town hall presses Acevedo on fatal botched raid
The Houston Police Department will end the use of controversial no-knock warrants in most situations, Chief Art Acevedo said Monday during a contentious town hall meeting three weeks after a deadly Pecan Park drug raid that left two people dead and five officers injured.
“The no-knock warrants are going to go away like leaded gasoline in this city,” Acevedo told the crowd of dozens of activists, reformers and concerned community members.
Acevedo later said a noknock raid would need to receive a special exemption from his office to be approved. Given the wounded officers and the two slain civilians, the chief said, he didn’t “see the value” in the controversial raids.
“I’m 99.9 percent sure we won’t be using them,” he said. “If for some reason there would be a specific case, that would come from my office.”
The chief said he also is expecting to roll out a new policy in coming weeks to
ensure that undercover officers wear body cameras; the fact that they didn’t in the recent raid on Harding Street was a point of contention afterward, given the lack of evidence gathered during the bust.
The announcements came during the town hall late Monday with Acevedo, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg and others after more than an hour of questions from a furious crowd that repeatedly pressed Acevedo on the conduct of his undercover officers, the use of no-knocks and inflammatory comments from Houston police union president Joe Gamaldi, who recently seemed to suggest the department was surveilling law enforcement critics. ‘All of them’
And, despite pushback earlier in the day from a defense lawyer representing the case agent at the center of the botched bust, Acevedo doubled down on his previous statements about the likelihood of charges against the police involved.
“I’m very confident we’re going to have criminal charges on one or more of the officers,” he said.
The crowd greeted his declaration with a chorus of angry voices demanding: “All of them.”
Still, Acevedo said he wouldn’t agree to let the Texas Ranger or the FBI take over the investigation.
“I feel very strongly that a police department that is not capable of investigating itself and finding malfeasance and criminal misconduct,” he said, “we should just shut down — and that’s just not the case here.”
Hours earlier, Nicole DeBorde — the attorney representing wounded case agent Gerald Goines — decried the possibility of criminal charges and raised concerns about a possible “setup.”
DeBorde also pushed back against what she said was the politicization of allegations against the veteran narcotics officer, citing selectively “leaked” documents, the police chief’s heated comments last week and the underplaying of her client’s willingness to help with the probe.
“Is this case going to get drastically overcharged or charged inappropriately because the district attorney’s office thinks that’s going to be popular?” she asked. “I feel like it’s a setup geared toward that and it makes me really uncomfortable. And I’d hate to see this man used for whoever’s political gain.”
DeBorde said officials neglected to mention that her client has gone out of his way to aid in the probe into his actions, even managing to get access to a phone in the hospital — where he remains under treatment for a gunshot wound to the neck — so he could offer help to a lieutenant.
“No one has said Goines has reached out to law enforcement to provide information, that he hasn’t been available for comment because he’s incapacitated,” she said. “It’s not like someone’s hiding information — he’s been medically unavailable, and that hasn’t stopped the chief of the department from making outrageous comments and I wonder if maybe a different agency should be brought in to investigate this.”
The Houston Chronicle does not typically name undercover officers, but Goines was identified in public documents Friday. Ongoing questions
The ongoing controversy comes three weeks after undercover narcotics officers burst into the small southeast Houston home on Jan. 28 with a no-knock warrant in search of heroin dealers. Instead, a gunbattle ensued and 58-year-old Rhogena Nicholas, 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle, and their pit bull dog ended up shot to death. Five officers — including Goines — were injured, though the bust netted only 18 grams of marijuana and 1.5 grams of cocaine.
The operation sparked controversy from the start, but on Friday a search warrant revealed that police had begun questioning the existence of the confidential informant Goines used in the alleged heroin buy. That supposed drug deal became the centerpiece of an affidavit used to get the no-knock warrant. But afterward, as Goines lay in the hospital with his jaw wired shut, questions arose as other investigators realized they couldn’t track down the informant.
The 34-year veteran officer offered up two different informant names, according to the docucer ment obtained by the Chronicle. But both of those people said they hadn’t done any deals at the Tuttle home, and when police tracked down all of Goines’ other informants, they offered similar accounts.
Hours after news of the leaked warrant — which sought access to another narcotics officer’s cellphone and other electronic data — Acevedo held a news conference where he condemned the case agent’s actions.
“We know that there’s already a crime that’s been committed,” he said. “It’s a serious crime when we prepare a document to go into somebody’s home, into the sanctity that is somebody’s home. It has to be truthful, it has to be honest, it has to be factual.”
DeBorde called the chief’s remarks “irresponsible” given the pending investigation.
“There have been very specific and partial pieces of information leaked to the media which makes me wonder what agenda there is here because they’re so very much just a part of what’s happening,” she said. “I have to think there’s a reason and I don’t know entirely what it is.”
Given that the electronics to be searched were all likely department-issued, DeBorde questioned why a warrant — and all the information laid out in it — was even necessary. Authorities have not come forward with any warrants for Goines’ devices, she said.
Goines has been in intensive care since the shooting, DeBorde said. Like Steven Bryant — the offi- targeted by the recent warrant — Goines has been relieved of duty. He’s undergone six surgeries and, until recently, was on a feeding tube with his jaw wired shut. It’s still not clear what his version of the events leading up to the deadly gunfight might be; he’s been too heavily medicated to offer a thorough account of what happened. Angry questions
But Acevedo’s sweeping announcements weren’t enough to placate some of the town hall attendees.
When asked whether he would fire Gamaldi, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union or others who may be surveilling or harassing activists, Acevedo said he wouldn’t deal with speculation. In response, activist Shere Dore fired back with an allegation that earlier in the day police took pictures of protesters gathered outside Houston police headquarters to demand murder charges against the case agent behind the raid.
Acevedo asked for video to look into the claim.
One member of the audience, Tomaro Bell, expressed indignation over police use of no-knock warrants.
“I do believe this officer is going to be charged with murder,” she said of Goines. “But the systemic problems that exist in the undercover narcotics division will not be resolved with this officer charged with murder.”