Following up on my article presenting evidence that Houston Police raided the wrong home when they busted in the door of Dennis Tuttle and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas, Police Chief Art Acevedo announced on Friday that his officers raided the wrong home.
Dennis Tuttle, a 59-year-old disabled Navy veteran, Rhogena Nicholas and their dog were murdered in the raid. Four Houston Police officers were shot.
Acevedo, fresh from direct praise from President Trump, held a press conference on Friday naming Narcotics Office Gerald Goines, a veteran of 34 years, as possibly being criminally liable for the botched raid.
It turns out, according to Police Chief Acevedo, that Gerald Goines lied to obtain the no knock raid that led to the killing of Tuttle and Nicholas.
Gerald Goines who lied
to obtain the warrant
that killed the Tuttles
As suspected in our previous article, Goines never witnessed a Confidential Informant buy heroin from the Tuttle home – yet presented black tar heroin from another drug buy as evidence. The heroin that was turned in falsely as being from the Tuttle home, is yet to be accounted for.
Goines took the lead in the Tuttle raid on January 28th and was shot in the neck with a .357 magnum revolver (more on that later), but this wasn’t the first time Goines had been shot in suspicious circumstances.
In 1992, Goines was urinating near the side of a home. The homeowner, concerned about a rash of burglaries, approached Goines to speak with him. During the conversation that suffered a language barrier, Goines brandished his firearm without revealing he was a cop.
The homeowner returned and Goines was shot in the jaw. The homeowner survived the encounter and no charges were filed.
Years later in 1997, in an incident of road rage, Goines killed Reginald Dorsey after Dorsey, who was driving with a three-year-old child, allegedly pulled out a firearm and fired from his moving vehicle. Goines had been following Dorsey in an unmarked car after Dorsey refused to allow Goines to merge into his lane.
Goines was shot twice in the incident. The case was first purported to be part of a drug bust gone wrong, but when at least the partial truth came out, it was the two men competing for a lane on a highway. The child was injured by flying glass as Goines shot into the car.
In 2002, Goines shot 17-year-old James Sullivan after the young man allegedly attempted to rob Goines as he was off duty. Sullivan survived the gunshot to his abdomen and was later charged.
Shootings weren’t the only suspicious factors in Goines’ past. The 34-year-veteran has been accused at least twice of lying under oath regarding a drug buy.
Otis Mallet, a 63-year-old Houston man was arrested in 2008 and convicted in 2011, stemming from a $200 crack cocaine buy where Goines was the only witness.
Goines swore in court that he paid $200 for the crack, and while $1,668 in cash was seized in Mallet’s home, the $200 in marked police money wasn’t found and was marked as “Lost”. A month later, the cash was expensed as being used with a Confidential Informant – yet no CI was used in the drug raid.
Otis Mallet spent years in prison yet continues to fight the conviction, which if overturned would provide him with compensation from the state for time served – along with a strong civil case against Goines and the Houston Police Department.
Going back to 2002, Goines was reprimanded for traveling with seized crack cocaine in his truck for supposedly two months without turning it in as evidence.
While many of the above incidents never made their way onto Goines’ personnel file, the narcotics officer has been reprimanded several other times for conduct that could be defined as “hot headed” behavior.
Gerald Goines is a competitive powerlifter and made the 2012 Texas Police Federation’s “Hall of Fame.” Powerlifting meet results from 1997, show the younger 33 year-old Goines, having a combined bench press, squat and deadlift of 1,725 pounds.
Back to the Tuttle raid, Goines and three other officers were reported to have been shot by Tuttle with a .357 Magnum revolver.
Back that up for a moment: six shot revolver and four hits by a 59-year-old disabled veteran while taking fire from a trained SWAT team. Impressive right?
Not so fast.
Court documents found four firearms were seized from the home. Two shotguns were found, a 12-gauge Remington and a 20-gauge Beretta “ALS” (which is a model that doesn’t exist), along with a .22 rifle and a Remington 700 “7mm”.
No .357 revolver was reported in the document that listed items found during the deadly no-knock raid.
A Houston Police Department’s Public Affairs officer could not comment on the discrepancy and restated that the “investigation is ongoing.”
Given Goines police record, that is known to have left at least three dead and one shot along with others being very likely falsely imprisoned, how far with Houston Police’s internal affairs investigators dig?
With Houston Police investigating themselves, it’s likely we’ll never know.
Comment and share your thoughts below.
