Acevedo reveals new no-knock raid policy details.
HPD chief tells council multiple officers likely will face charges after botched operation
More than one officer will likely face criminal charges as a result of a botched drug raid in late January that left two people dead and five officers injured, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Thursday.
It could take several more weeks to wrap up the department’s criminal and administrative inquiries into the raid at 7815 Harding, Acevedo told City Council members at Thursday. While he didn’t provide any details on what those charges might entail, he did drill down into some of the specifics of a new department policy that requires more oversight and forbids narcotics officers from carrying out the high-risk busts.
Police initially burst in the Pecan Park home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas searching for a pair of heroin dealers. But the raid netted few drugs and sparked angry outcry from the slain couple’s friends and family, who maintained they weren’t selling narcotics.
In the weeks following the raid, Acevedo said the veteran case agent who requested the search warrant will likely face criminal charges for allegedly lying about using a confidential informant to conduct an undercover buy. Acevedo subsequently relieved the case agent of duty, along with his partner, who has since retired.
The Houston Chronicle has previously identified the case agent as Gerald Goines, a narcotics officer who has been with the department for 34 years, and his partner as Steven Bryant, who spent 23 years at HPD before retiring earlier this month. Acevedo described
the investigation into the deadly operation as “very exhaustive,” noting that besides HPD, the FBI was probing the incident along with prosecutors and investigators from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
“We have got a lot of eyes, a lot of assets, and folks from multiple agencies conducting investigations into the Harding Street raid,” he said.
The chief’s comments came after he briefed members of City Council’s public safety committee on changes the department was making — following the disastrous raid — to its policies surrounding how its officers execute search warrants, particularly those requiring “dynamic entries,” where officers break down the door to the building they search.
Council members voiced little serious criticism during the hourlong briefing, though several asked questions about how search warrants were handled at the time of the raid.
Acevedo responded that the department’s internal review process “wasn’t where it needed to be, in terms of management’s involvement,” he said. “We’re going to tighten it up.”
Later, he told at-large council member Amanda Edwards the department is still revising the warrant procedures, but pledged a higher bar for officers seeking authority to enter a home to search for contraband.
“One (drug) buy will not lead to a warrant,” he said.
Acevedo said the new policy would require him to approve the warrant, or in his absence, one of his two top assistant chiefs. Among the other changes: Officers will be required to obtain warrants from district court judges, rather than municipal judges, who are city employees.
He also said that so-called no-knock raids, where officers break down doors without announcing their presence, would be performed only by SWAT teams.
“You don’t want to eliminate them completely,” Acevedo said. “There are instances where the no-knock
warrant tactic is probably the safest.”
Two officers from departments elsewhere have died conducting no-knock raids in the weeks since the Harding Street operation, Acevedo said. In Milwaukee, one police officer died during a no-knock raid on Feb. 6; another was killed three weeks later in Killeen.
“We know that they’re dangerous for everybody,” Acevedo said, noting that one of the officers injured in the raid remains hospitalized.
Acevedo said that narcotics officers, who had routinely performed noknocks, will execute only “knock-and-announce” warrants and will need to use ballistic shields during raids, and that such operations will require the presence of a division lieutenant when they are performed.
The new policy marks a dramatic shift from past practices when narcotics officers routinely sought warrants from municipal court judges and county magistrates and then carried them out on their own. In the Harding Street raid, a municipal court judge approved the controversial warrant, which court documents have since alleged contained false claims about the use of an informant. “One of the complaints (was) that, ‘Well, they’re agents of the actual city,’ ” Acevedo said, although he quickly praised the integrity of municipal judges.
District I council member Robert Gallegos, who represents the neighborhood where the raid took place, relayed concerns from parents furious over officers’ decision to perform a raid on a weekday afternoon. Parents reported children jumping into ditches as police raced to the scene, he said.
Acevedo said the department is examining the decision for the raid’s timing and evaluating whether school officials could be notified in advance of nearby operations in the future.
Asked about what impact the new policies would have on daily operations, officials with the Houston Police Officers’ Union declined to comment.
At the end of the briefing, committee chair Brenda Stardig, District A council member, asked what else the council could do to assist police.
“You mean besides more cops and more money?” he cracked.