Former Houston Police Department officer Gerald Goines has pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges tied to the 2019 Harding Street raid that left a Houston couple dead.
The raid took place Jan. 28, 2019, when HPD’s narcotics squad executed a no-knock warrant at a home on Harding Street based on an affidavit Goines had sworn. The operation ended in a shootout that killed Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas and injured four HPD officers. The couple’s dog was also killed.
Federal prosecutors said Goines falsely claimed in the affidavit that a confidential informant had purchased heroin from a resident of the home and turned it over to him. He later admitted that claim was false. He also included other false statements in the affidavit, including claims that additional people had bought drugs from the home’s occupants in the roughly three weeks before the warrant was sought.
Prosecutors went further, saying Goines eventually acknowledged there was no informant and no drug purchase at all, and that he had not investigated the home before leading the narcotics team inside.
U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz said in a statement that “ends don’t justify the means” and that Goines “broke public trust, repeatedly lied.” FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge Jason Hudson said Goines was guilty of “abusing his authority” as a senior narcotics officer who held a position of public trust.
Court filings indicate Goines admitted the conduct was willful and involved the use of a dangerous weapon.
U.S. District Judge George Hanks accepted the plea and set sentencing for Nov. 9. Goines faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 fine. The judge could allow the federal sentence to run concurrently with Goines’ existing state sentence, though that determination hasn’t been made yet.
Goines, 62, is already serving a 60-year state prison sentence after a Harris County jury convicted him in September 2024 on two counts of felony murder in the deaths of Tuttle and Nicholas. That conviction followed a nearly five-week trial in which prosecutors laid out evidence that Goines lied to obtain the no-knock warrant. His attorneys have appealed the state conviction.
Two others tied to the case have also pleaded guilty. Former HPD officer Steven Bryant pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for falsifying a report to back up Goines’ account, and Patricia Ann Garcia pleaded guilty to providing false information. Garcia has already been sentenced to more than three years in prison; Bryant is still awaiting sentencing.
The fallout from the raid has carried a financial cost for the city as well.
Houston’s city council has approved multiple rounds of funding for outside legal defense tied to a related civil rights lawsuit from the victims’ family, with the total contract reaching nearly $3 million as of 2024. The city has since required the police chief to personally sign off on no-knock warrants and created a specialized unit to execute them.
The plea also arrives as Houston voters prepare to weigh in on a related ballot measure this fall.
The city council voted earlier this month to place a charter amendment, known as the Houston Freedom Act, on the Nov. 3 ballot. If approved, it would make low-level marijuana possession HPD’s lowest enforcement priority and would prohibit no-knock warrants inside the city altogether, requiring officers executing search warrants to knock, announce themselves, and wait at least 15 seconds before entering.
The petition drive was organized by Ground Game Texas, a left-wing group that has run similar decriminalization campaigns in Texas cities since 2022.
The no-knock provision traces directly back to Harding Street.
Mayor John Whitmire has said the change reflects HPD’s current practice, noting no-knock warrants haven’t been served under his administration or his predecessor’s.
Houston Police Officers Union President Douglas Griffith made a similar point, saying HPD largely abandoned no-knock warrants after Harding Street.
At-large Councilmember Sallie Alcorn countered that the measure would lock the city’s current posture into the charter permanently, regardless of who holds the mayor’s office or leads HPD in the future.
