City OKs $1.7M to defend Acevedo in suit
Houston City Council has approved an additional $1.7 million to defend the city and former Police Chief Art Acevedo in a federal lawsuit over a fatal drug raid. The additional funding brings the city’s lawsuit costs to more than $2.9 million.
All council members who were present — with the exception of Council Member Tiffany Thomas — voted in favor of the additional funding.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court 2021, centers around the murder of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas in their Houston home in 2019. Houston police officers raided the couple’s home on Harding Street after former Houston police officer Gerald Goines said he had purchased heroin at their home through an undercover informant and got a magistrate to sign off on a warrant.
Acevedo, who was Houston police chief at the time, said Goines had lied about purchasing the drugs at the Harding Street home.
Clifford Tuttle Jr., Dennis Tuttle’s uncle, sued the city and Acevedo in U.S. District Court for the Southern Division of Texas for allegedly violating the couple’s civil rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, which protect against unreasonable searches and guarantee due process, respectively. Acevedo was scheduled to give a deposition in the case at a Denver law office Wednesday morning, according to the most recent court filing.
Mike Doyle, who’s representing the Tuttle and Nicholas families in their lawsuit, said the couple and their grieving families deserve justice. Meanwhile, City Attorney Arturo Michel acknowledged the pain of the families but said the city should not be held liable for the actions of rogue police officers.
Ahead of the vote Wednesday, Michel told City Council members that the city was going to put “subsequent remedial measures” in place at the Houston Police Department. Those measures include requiring the police chief to approve all no-knock warrants, putting highly trained and specialized teams in charge of raids and ensuring that raid warrants are signed by district court judges instead of magistrates, Michel said.
Mayor John Whitmire called the case “tragic” and said requiring warrants to be signed by district court judges would be an improvement.
Acevedo recently returned to Texas after stints as a police chief in Miami and interim police chief in Aurora, Colo. He was supposed to step into an administrative role at Austin City Hall overseeing the city’s police work, but Acevedo told city leaders Tuesday that he would not take the job after public backlash over his hire, which was first reported by the Austin American-Statesman.
The five-year anniversary of Tuttle and Nicholas’ deaths is this Sunday. Activists will hold a demonstration outside the Police Department headquarters at 3 p.m. Saturday to honor Tuttle and Nicholas’ lives and call for accountability in the case.