Retired Houston cop gets 60 years in death of couple in drug raid that exposed corruption

HOUSTON (AP) — A former Houston police officer was sentenced Tuesday to 60 years in prison for the murder of a married couple during a drug raid which revealed systemic corruption within the department’s narcotics unit.

Gerald Goines60, been convicted in the January 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Nicholas, 58, who were shot along with their dog after officers raided their home with a no-knock warrant, requiring no sign-in before they entered.

Goines looked down but had no visible reaction as he heard the sentences for each killing, which will run concurrently. The jurors deliberated for more than ten hours over two days about Goines’ sentence.

Prosecutors presented testimony and evidence showing that he lied to obtain a search warrant that falsely portrayed the couple as dangerous drug dealers.

The investigation into the drug raid allegations of much wider corruption have come to light. Goines was one of 10 officers tied up the narcotics team who were others indicted costs. A judge dismissed charges against some of them, but a review of thousands of cases involving the unit led prosecutors reject many thingsand the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has fallen over at least 22 convictions linked to Goines.

Defense attorney Nicole DeBorde had asked for the minimum sentence of five years because Goines had dedicated his life to keeping drugs off the streets. “Our community is safer with someone like Gerald, with a heart to serve and a heart to care,” she said.

Prosecutors sought life in prison, telling jurors that Goines preyed on people he was supposed to protect with a yearslong pattern of corruption that has severely damaged the relationship between law enforcement and the community.

“No community is cleansed by an officer who uses his badge as a tool of oppression rather than a shield of protection,” said prosecutor Tanisha Manning.

Prosecutors said Goines falsely claimed that an informant at the couple’s home had purchased heroin from a man with a gun, sparking the violent confrontation that killed the couple and shot and wounded four officers, including Goines, and injured a fifth hit.

Goines’ attorneys acknowledged that he lied to get the search warrant, but tried to minimize the impact of his false statements. They argued that the first person to shoot another person was Tuttle and not police officers. But a Texas Ranger who investigated the raid testified that the officers fired first, killing the dog and likely provoking Tuttle’s gunfire.

An officer who participated, as well as the judge who approved the warrant, testified that the raid would never have happened if they had known Goines had lied.

Investigators later found only small amounts of marijuana and cocaine in the home, and while Houston’s then-police chief… Art Acevedo, initially praised Goines was ‘tough as nails’ and later suspended him when the lies came to light. Goines later retired as probes continued.

Goines also made a drug arrest in Houston in 2004 George Floydwhose 2020 death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer led to a national reckoning over racism in policing. A sign from Texas in 2022 has denied a request to posthumously pardon Floyd for that drug conviction.

Goines is also confronted federal criminal charges in connection with the raid, and federal civil rights lawsuits A case brought by the families of Tuttle and Nicholas against Goines, 12 other officers and the city of Houston will go to trial in November.

Nicholas’ family expressed their gratitude following Goines’ convictions in a statement saying that “the jury saw this case for what it was: brutal murders by corrupt police, an epic cover-up and a measure of justice, at least for Goines.”

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