Houston Officers Indicted In Deadly Drug Raid

More arrests are underway for the Houston Police Department. A second officer has been arrested and charged with Murder as additional officers who have also been indicted as part of an investigation into The Houston Police Department Narcotics Unit. This investigation is currently underway following a deadly drug raid that occurred in 2019, prosecutors announced Monday.
A total of 12 officers tied to the unit has also been indicted after their work was scrutinized following the January 2019 drug raid, at which Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his wife Rhogena Nicholas, 58, were killed.
“The consequences of corruption are two innocent ordinary people were killed in their home, four police officers were shote, one of them paralyzed and now all of them will face Harris County jurors who will decide their fate,” said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
Officer Felipe Gallegos was indicted on murder charges in relation to Tuttle’s death, and if convicted, he faces up to life in prison, Ogg added.
Gallegos’ attorney, Rusty Hardin, declined to make comments on the case Monday.
In addition, 5 other officers were indicted Monday for the roles they played in the alleged scheme to steal overtime payments while working with the narcotics squad.
3 of the 5 officers, Oscar Pardo, Cedell Lovingg, and Nadeed Ashraf, all are facing first degree felony charges for engaging in organized criminal activity in relation to the theft of a public servant and tampering with government records. They also are facing a hefty sentence of life imprisonment.
The other two officers – Frank Medina and Griff Maxwell- are facing second-degree felony charges on the same indictments and could be sentenced up to 20 years behind bars if found guilty.
Three retired officers who were charges last year on different charges in relation to this case, also face new indictments. Clemente Reyna and Thomas Wood were also indicted on first degree felony charges of engaging in organized criminal activity related to a theft of a public servant and tampering with government records. The third retired officer – Hodgie Armstrong – was charged with second-degree felonies on the very same charges.
Two former members of the narcotics unit – Gerald Goines and Steven Bryant – had previously been indicted on charges in state and federal courts in relation to this case, in addition, including charges of felony murder filed in state court against Goines. Lt. Robert Gonzales, another former police officer was indicted just last year.
Prosecutors say during their investigation, they discovered that the already indicted officers were part of the unit that falsified documents about drug payments to informants and used false information continuously to obtain search warrants.
Prosecutors allege Goines lied to obtain the warrant to search the home belonging to the couple. Goines said a confidential informant purchased heroin at the home, but the informant told police there was no such drug buy that ever occurred at the couple’s home. Officers found very small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the house, but no heroin.
The officers used a “no-knock” warrant to enter the home, which doesn’t require officers to announce themselves before breaking entry, gunfire met the officers after the home was breached. Close friends of Tuttle and Nicholas said they were not criminals and assumed the couple thought their home was being broken into by intruders.




All 5 officers were injured in the raid.
The Chief of Houston PD, Art Acevedo, blamed this terrible mishap on Goines and Bryant, stating that this was a faulty search warrant. He did mention the other officers acted reasonably to the deadly threat posed to them during the (faulty) warrant’s service.
The Houston Police union previously called this entire investigation a political ploy by Ogg but has not returned an email seeking comments as of Monday.
The family members of Tuttle and Nicholas has obtained legal representation and has launched their own private investigation of the 2019 raid and have been at war with the city and police department in court over the requests of obtaining documents and depositions from agency officials.
“The latest indictments confirm some of the findings from the families’ independent investigation, and yet again raises questions: how high does the corruption of (the narcotics squad) go and why had the city and (Houston PD0 fought so hard, still, to conceal the basic facts about what happened before, during and after the murderous raid?” Michael Doyle, one of the Nicholas family attorneys, released in a statement.
Since the deadly 2019 raid, Prosecutors are doubling back on reviewing thousands of cases handled by the narcotics unit.
Over 160 drug convictions tied to Goines have been dismissed by prosecutors in relation to this case.
According to an audit made public in July, the narcotics unit found that several officers weren’t very thorough in their investigations and overpaid informants for minuscule amounts of drugs that were seized.