A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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If police officers keep kicking down doors to serve drug warrants, both cops and suspects will keep dying.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... struction/
On Jan. 28th, a Houston narcotics team conducted a no-knock raid on the home of Dennis Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Nicholas, 58. The police claimed to have received an anonymous tip that the two were selling drugs. They also claim they sent an informant to the house to attempt a controlled buy, and that informant returned with heroin.

According to the police account, as they broke down the door, a dog charged them, and they shot it. They say Tuttle then charged at them with a handgun, wounding multiple officers. After the police opened fire, he retreated to a backroom. The police say Nicholas then charged a wounded officer and attempted to grab his shotgun. They opened fire again, killing her. They say Tuttle then reemerged, firing his gun, at which point they killed him, too. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo initially claimed the house was “hardened,” or fortified, possibly with surveillance cameras. He also claimed that the police arrived with their sirens and flashers activated, inferring that the couple should have known they were being raided by law enforcement. In the end, the story went, five cops put their lives on the line to get a heroin-dealing couple off the street. (My colleagues here at The Post published an editorial praising Acevedo for using the incident to call for gun-control laws that might keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.)

But since then, the official story has started to unravel. It’s increasingly looking as though something went horribly wrong on Harding Street, and that Tuttle and Nicholas were not hardened drug dealers, but at most recreational drug dealers who were invaded, shot and killed in their own home. Here’s a quick rundown of what we now know:

· The Houston Chronicle reported Friday morning that an Houston Police Department officer has been “relieved of duty” due to “ongoing questions” about his involvement in the raid.

· The police obtained a no-knock warrant. That would seem to contradict Acevedo’s claim that the officers arrived with their sirens and flashers on. The entire purpose of a no-knock raid is to take suspects by surprise. That surprise is spoiled pretty quickly if you provide notice of your arrival.

· Tuttle and Nicholas had lived at the same house in the 7800 block of Harding Street for 20 years. The police apparently didn’t bother to do much investigating, because they didn’t even know the names of either of the home’s occupants when they broke down the door.

· According to police, the informant claimed to have seen lots of plastic baggies filled with black tar heroin and a 9mm semiautomatic handgun. The raid didn’t turn up either. They did apparently find a small amount of pot, a revolver and a small quantity of powder that might have been cocaine (or might not).

· Acevedo initially claimed that after the raid, “The neighborhood thanked our officers because it was a drug house. They described it as a problem location.” Yet in the days that followed, neighbors and family of the couple came forward, stating that they were shocked to hear the allegations of drug dealing. They described the couple as “easygoing,” and said they rarely saw visitors. The neighbors’ testimonials seem particularly troubling, since it was allegedly a neighbor’s anonymous tip that sparked the initial investigation.

· Neither suspect had a significant criminal record. The only criminal history for either was a decade-old bad check charge against Nicholas that was dismissed about a month after it was filed.

· Despite what the police department claimed early on, the house was not fortified, nor did it have surveillance cameras. One local police watchdog group pointed out on YouTube that while the targeted home on Harding Street didn’t appear to be either fortified or equipped with surveillance, a separate home with the same street number on Hardy Street was both fortified and equipped with extensive surveillance gear. During a news conference after the raid, Acevedo himself used both “Hardy” and “Harding" in describing the street where the raid went down.

· Acevedo initially claimed that the officers were met with gunfire immediately upon entering the house. Later, he said the police fired first, killing Tuttle’s dog.

By last week, activists began to speak out, noting these inconsistencies in the official narrative and questioning why the police needed to use such violent tactics in the first place. Some even began to question whether the police were telling the truth about what happened. This sparked a backlash from law enforcement. Acevedo dismissed what he called “crazy conspiracy theories,” adding, “I guarantee you we got the right house.” Police union president Joe Gamaldi blamed the shooting on “anti-police rhetoric,” then issued what sounded an awful lot like a threat: “If you’re the ones that are out there spreading the rhetoric that police officers are the enemy, just know we’ve all got your number now, we’re going to be keeping track of all of y’all, and we’re going to make sure that we hold you accountable every time you stir the pot on our police officers.” To his credit, Acevedo criticized Gamaldi’s remarks.

But Gamaldi may soon need to spend more time defending his dues-paying members than tracking and threatening police critics. The Chronicle’s report notes that the officer’s punishment comes “amid a probe into questions over whether the sworn affidavit used to justify the no-knock warrant may have contained false information.” Acevedo told the paper, “I know that in addition to the officer-involved shooting itself, many have questions regarding the circumstances surrounding the search warrant. All of these questions are part of our ongoing criminal and administrative investigations." Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg says she’s also looking into the matter.

Drug cops often face a lot of pressure to raid houses, seize illicit drugs and rack up arrests. We saw this in Atlanta in the Kathryn Johnston case, where the police got a tip about a stash house, and instead of waiting to find an informant, conducting a controlled buy, and requesting a warrant, they skipped the first two steps. They made up the drug buy, lied to a judge, got their warrant and killed an innocent 92-year-old woman in her own home. They then tried to cover it all up. Just a few months ago I reported that drug cops and Little Rock had lied about a controlled buy to a judge, then conducted an extraordinarily violent no-knock raid on a man who happened to be innocent. (Acevedo said his department serves more than 1,700 search warrants per year — more than 4.5 per day. It seems safe to assume that the vast majority of those are drug warrants.)

I’ve been writing about these tactics for more than 15 years now. And while there has been some movement on the margins — groups such as the National Tactical Officers Association now recommend that when it comes to serving drug warrants, police attempt apprehend suspects outside their homes instead of attempting “dynamic entry” — the raids haven’t stopped, and the pile of dead bodies keeps growing.

The arguments against these raids are self-evident. They create violence and confrontation where there was none before. They sow confusion and chaos, and thus have a very thin margin for error. By design, they inflict punishment on people who have yet to even be charged with a crime, much less convicted of one. They also inflict punishment on any innocent people who might be inside. They subject everyone — cops and suspects — to unnecessary risk. Combine all of that with a drug war that by necessity operates on dirty information from shady informants and anonymous tips, and you have a recipe for needless death and destruction. And there’s little evidence that these tactics make the community any safer.

I could write a book of examples. But here are just a handful from the past several years:

· Even as the drama continues to play out in Houston, in another part of Texas, Marvin Guy is about to be tried on murder charges in the killing of a police officer during a 2014 no-knock drug raid. The police first broke a window, causing Guy to reach for his gun. They then broke down Guy’s door, at which time he allegedly shot and killed Officer Charles Dinwiddie. The police found no drugs in Guy’s home. He’s facing a possible death sentence if convicted. (I’ll have more about Guy in a post next week.)

· The same year as the raid on Guy, another Texas man, Henry Magee, shot and killed Deputy Adam Sowders during a raid on Magee’s home. Unlike Guy, Magee did have illicit drugs in his home — marijuana plants. Magee maintained the shooting was done in self-defense, and a grand jury declined to charge him in Sowders’s death. It’s worth noting that Guy is black, and Magee is white.

· The same year as those raids, Jason Wescott of Tampa was shot and killed during a police raid on his home. An informant claimed to have bought some pot from Wescott. The same informant later said he had lied about the purchase — at the encouragement of Tampa police.

· In yet another case from Texas, in 2016 a jury in Corpus Christi acquitted Ray Rosas for shooting at police during a no-knock drug raid on his home. The police were looking for his nephew. Rosas had good reason to be afraid — he had once testified against a gang member.

· Last year, a jury in Austin (where Acevedo was previously the chief of police) convicted 18-year-old Tyler Harrell of assault for shooting at police during a no-knock raid on his home. Harrell and his mother said they had no idea the raiding officers were law enforcement. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

And the beat goes on. Just days after the deadly raid in Houston, a state trooper and a suspect were both killed during a raid in Virginia.

Police officials like to have it both ways. They want to use tactics designed to confuse and disorient people — to take people by surprise. But when someone in the midst of that chaos mistakes police for armed intruders and tries to defend himself, officials say they should have known that the armed intruders were law enforcement. Over at Reason, Jacob Sullum notes that there was a good reason Tuttle and Nicholas may have believed otherwise: There has been a rash of recent incidents in Houston in which armed criminals have posed as police.

On top of all of that, there’s a huge double standard at play here. Police who mistakenly shoot unarmed or innocent people in these raids are inevitably forgiven by police chiefs, prosecutors and judges, owing to the volatility of the circumstances. Of course, the police created those circumstances. And yet the targets of these raids — the people the tactics are designed to confuse — are rarely afforded that sort of leniency. The Magee case notwithstanding, if you shoot at the police as they raid your home, you’re almost certainly looking at criminal charges that will put you in prison for a long time — provided you live through the raid itself.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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Balko. who wrote Warrior Cop, has been writing about these abuses for some time.
8th Circuit rejects Monell claim in Perkins v. Little Rock

In a nutshell, police send crap informants to people's doors to get the evidence that serves as bases for no-knock warrants. The informants might just make up the alleged evidence and not even make contact with the future victims. Then the PDs dress up like operators and play SEAL Team on the victims, putting themselves, their victims, and others at risk.

Acevedo is happy to have his thugs kick down your door and, of course, does not want you armed to the extent his officers can be.
Last edited by DispositionMatrix on Mon Feb 11, 2019 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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Damn! But this sort of state sponsored violence makes me angry. Like Vietnam (or Afghanistan) on US streets now. Go into a village with overwhelming force based on questionable intel only to kill a bunch of civilians and guarantee the locals will hate you.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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senorgrand wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 6:30 pm Sorry, my point was that when you declare War (the War on Drugs) against your own citizens, some of those citizens are going to die. End the War.
Roger that. This WoD started as a crackdown on urban drugs (aka minorities), filled prisons, and expanded to what we have today with militarized police and ICE.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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After a drug raid killed a middle-aged couple and injured five narcotics officers in Houston last week, the head of the local police union blamed people who criticize cops, while the police chief blamed politicians who fail to support the gun control policies he favors. The real cause was a fundamentally immoral war on drugs that routinely requires violence in response to peaceful activities. Hours after the deadly attack on the home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, Joe Gamaldi, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, condemned "the ones that are out there spreading the rhetoric that police officers are the enemy." He warned that "we're going to be keeping track of all y'all," and "we're going to be holding you accountable every time you stir the pot on our police officers."

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo later rebuked Gamaldi for his "over-the-top" remarks. "Joe Gamaldi's emotions got the best of him," Acevedo said. "This had nothing to do with any of the stuff that he was talking about." Yet Acevedo could not resist tossing out his own red herring by criticizing "elected officials" who fail to address the "proliferation of firearms in the hands of people that have no business having guns." The Washington Post praised Acevedo for seizing on the horribly botched drug raid to reiterate his support for "sensible gun safety policies" such as "reinstatement of the assault weapons ban," "a ban on high-capacity magazines," and requiring that "unlicensed private dealers do background checks at gun shows."

All of those policies were plainly irrelevant to the incident that supposedly illustrated the need for them. Neither Tuttle nor Nicholas had a criminal record that would have disqualified them from buying firearms, and the revolver that Tuttle reportedly fired at the police officers who invaded his home was not an "assault weapon." Nor was it capable of accepting a "high-capacity magazine." The actual circumstances of the shootout at 7815 Harding Street point to a different culprit. Based on an anonymous tip and the word of a confidential informant who claimed to have bought heroin from Tuttle, undercover narcotics officers obtained a "no-knock" search warrant that authorized them to break into the house without warning, which they did around 5 p.m. on January 28.

The first officer through the door was carrying a shotgun, which he immediately used to kill one of the couple's dogs. According to the official police account, which we have to rely on because there is no body camera video of the raid, Tuttle responded by shooting the officer, who collapsed on a sofa in the living room. As Nicholas moved to disarm the intruder, police say, his fellow officers shot her. Tuttle returned fire, and he was also killed. Although press coverage of the raid generally portrayed the injured police officers as the victims, that surely is not the way it looked to Tuttle and Nicholas. Amid the noise and chaos, it is plausible that Tuttle did not even realize that the armed men knocking down his door, killing his dog, and shooting his wife were police officers. They were not wearing uniforms, and in any case Houston had recently seen a series of home invasions by robbers masquerading as cops.

Nor is it clear that Tuttle and Nicholas, who had lived in the house for more than two decades, were actually selling drugs. Police did not find any of the heroin that their confidential informant claimed to have seen in the house the day before, and neighbors, who described Tuttle and Nicholas as "wonderful people" who "never bothered anyone," said they had not noticed any suspicious activity. Even if the neighbors were wrong and the police were right, the so-called crime they were investigating, which involved nothing more than the voluntary exchange of drugs for money, cannot possibly justify the armed assault they mounted. If police officers don't want to be portrayed as the enemy, they should stop acting like the enemy.
http://reason.com/archives/2019/02/06/o ... ed-herring

I hope a huge wrongful death lawsuit is filed against the City, Acevedo and those in charge of this raid. When cities and counties lose millions in civil lawsuits questions get asked. Guns are not the problem, police management is.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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He warned that "we're going to be keeping track of all y'all," and "we're going to be holding you accountable every time you stir the pot on our police officers."
Words to encourage trust.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
- Ronald Reagan

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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From the article the police had the house number but wrong street. This is just a repeat of the same actions by police all over the US. The no knock military style raids is wrong. It seems every time this happens the police immediately cry foul when they are criticized for sloppy police work. I agree make the government controlling the PD pay for the wrongful death suit, but take the money out of the budget of the agency responsible for the raid and deaths.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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TrueTexan wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 7:39 pm From the article the police had the house number but wrong street. This is just a repeat of the same actions by police all over the US. The no knock military style raids is wrong. It seems every time this happens the police immediately cry foul when they are criticized for sloppy police work. I agree make the government controlling the PD pay for the wrongful death suit, but take the money out of the budget of the agency responsible for the raid and deaths.
It happens over and over again.
Three former Atlanta police officers were sentenced Tuesday to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years for covering up a botched drug raid in which a 92-year-old woman was killed.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/24/atlanta.police/
A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95475&page=1
Police in Mississippi fatally shot a man after trying to serve an arrest warrant at the wrong address, a lawyer for the victim's family told NBC News. The officers shot and killed Ismael Lopez, 41, while they were attempting to arrest his neighbor, Samuel Pearman, on a domestic abuse charge Sunday night in Southaven.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mi ... nt-n786681
In a country where four in 10 adults have guns in their homes, the raids incite predictable collisions between forces that hurtle toward each other like speeding cars in a passing lane — officers with a license to invade private homes and residents convinced of their right to self-defense.

After being awakened by the shattering of doors and the detonation of stun grenades, bleary suspects reach for nearby weapons — at times realizing it is the police, at others mistaking them for intruders — and the shooting begins. In some cases, victims like Todd Blair, a Utah man who grabbed a golf club on the way out of his bedroom, have been slain by officers who perceived a greater threat than existed.
Yup if cities have to explain to their residents why they have to start cutting city services maybe there will be some changes.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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I don't get it: When there's a no-knock breaking down a door, why don't they have a bullhorn blasting: "THIS IS THE POLICE! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" to ensure those in the house don't think it's a break-in? Won't always work, but........................
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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YankeeTarheel wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 9:42 pm I don't get it: When there's a no-knock breaking down a door, why don't they have a bullhorn blasting: "THIS IS THE POLICE! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" to ensure those in the house don't think it's a break-in? Won't always work, but........................
I think the excuse is that any warning gives people time to destroy evidence or something. Really they are just looking to play Rambo.
106+ recreational uses of firearms
1 defensive use
0 people injured
0 people killed

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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This appeared to me to be a case of swatting. No knock warrants should not exist. Dubious informants that can manufacture evidence....charging in and killing the family dog. I bet many would react by firing back. Their death does not show guilt and the police have been slow to show real evidence. There probably was none. These people probably have no relatives to push for justice. The anonymous informant got what they wanted. They were probably the real drug pushers.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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TrueTexan wrote: Mon Feb 11, 2019 7:39 pm From the article the police had the house number but wrong street. This is just a repeat of the same actions by police all over the US. The no knock military style raids is wrong. It seems every time this happens the police immediately cry foul when they are criticized for sloppy police work. I agree make the government controlling the PD pay for the wrongful death suit, but take the money out of the budget of the agency responsible for the raid and deaths.
This whole setup smells. The HPD murdered these people. I guarantee nothing good will come of this. Yet the police chief in typical anti-gun fashion wants to disarm the people. In any shooting regardless of it being in his jurisdiction, he’s on camera.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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In November 2018 there was another in Bexar County, TX, thankfully no one was hurt.
A Leon Valley couple filed a federal lawsuit Monday alleging their civil rights were violated after three Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and eight Bexar County Sheriff’s deputies mistakenly raided and heavily damaged their home in November after receiving a tip that it was a drug “stash house.” Filed on behalf of plaintiffs Lucil and Raymond Basco, the lawsuit alleges illegal searches during a traffic stop and subsequent search of their home without probable cause. The couple is seeking a jury trial. Attorney Solomon M. Radner declined to discuss a monetary amount sought.

Asked about the allegations, the Sheriff’s Office responded with a statement via email: “We have not been served with any legal process. We will defer to the District Attorney’s Office regarding any ongoing legal matters.” Leon Valley police weren’t involved in the raid. According to the lawsuit, Lucil Basco, a registered nurse, was driving to pick up her 5-year-old son from school around 3 p.m. Nov. 14 on Bandera Road when three DPS troopers and other members of law enforcement pulled her over “because she did not use her blinker, her license plate was obstructed, and she did not pull over immediately,” the suit states. She said one of the troopers asked her to step out of the car, and she complied. They wrote her a warning, she picked up her son and went home.

About 4:15 p.m., she said she and her son were watching TV when she heard a loud bang that broke the front door and forced it open, the suit states. Acting on a tip from a confidential DEA informant, several defendant officers wearing masks with lights on their heads ran into the home in the 5300 block of Brisa Estates, yelling, and with guns drawn, according to the lawsuit. “I have had nightmares ever since the police broke down my door with their guns pointed at my head, pointed at us, handcuffed me and traumatized my son and myself,” Lucil Basco said Monday while holding back tears. “This is unfair to my son and this is unfair also to me. I was shocked, how could this happen to my family?” She also said she was handcuffed in front of her son, who cried out for his mother.

According to the document, the “defendant officers” searched the home for drugs, opened every door and broke a bedroom door and a closet door. When the search concluded, officers took the handcuffs off Lucil Basco, handed her the warrant and left her home. The next day, she spoke to one of the officers, who apologized to her, said the raid was a mistake, and gave her information on payment for the damage, the suit states. But Rander said the Bascos have yet to hear from anyone about the property damage. “What happened to this family is an absolute travesty. It never should have happened, it never should happen again,” he said. “The police have proven time and time again that they are absolutely 100 percent incapable of policing themselves.”

Leon Valley Police Chief Joseph Salvaggio issued a statement to emphasize that his department was not involved. “The lawsuit is against other law enforcement agencies who prepared and conducted the search warrant on a house in Leon Valley,” the chief said. “The Leon Valley Police Department was not present during the execution of the search warrant, and has no knowledge concerning it or the lawsuit that was filed.” Calls and emails sent to DPS and the DEA’s Houston office, which handles San Antonio, were not returned.
https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/ ... 492677.php


A $600 million wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Houston would put a nice big hole in the city budget in the original case. If they have insurance money, make it higher.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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Affidavit: Police can't find informant used to justify deadly Pecan Park drug raid
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said an undercover narcotics officer involved in a deadly botched drug raid will likely face criminal charges as questions continue to be raised about the case.

"There's a high probability there will be a criminal charge," Acevedo said Friday after a police affidavit went public raising questions about the integrity of the Jan. 28 drug bust.

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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Holy Toledo... Officers have already been fired and criminal charges will be filed. This case may be the end of that unit’s reign of terror. And consider that it actually took those guns in the hands of citizens to bring this injustice to light. I mean if nobody in that house had guns, if the couple’s dog was the only one that was killed and no officers were sent to the hospital with gunshot wounds, none of this criminal activity on the par of the this police unit would have come to light.

Can this actually be an example of why the 2nd Amendment exists? To give the police pause to seriously consider the consequences of kicking in someone’s door?
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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From above article.
"We will take as much time as it takes to get to the bottom of this," Acevedo said. He said prior cases handled by Officer Gerald Goines will be reviewed, and the entire narcotics unit will face an "extensive audit" of their practices. Houston police have been unable to find the confidential informant behind the drug buy that set off a deadly narcotics raid last month, according to the warrant affidavit signed last week. Written by a Special Investigation Unit Homicide officer, the five-page filing raises new questions in the case after a small-time drug bust turned into a shoot-out that left a Pecan Park couple dead and five officers hurt.
Last week, another officer involved in the case – Steven Bryant – was relieved of duty in light of ongoing questions.

Now, more questions are emerging; in two different interviews from his hospital bed, Goines named two different informants, according to the warrant. When investigators went to talk to them, both informants said they'd worked for Goines – but not on the buy that was used as the justification for the warrant and raid. Investigators got a full list of the confidential informants who worked for Goines, and they all denied making a buy at the Tuttle house 0r "ever purchasing narcotics from Rhogena Nicholas or Dennis Tuttle."

In the original warrant - the one used to justify the raid - Goines wrote that he watched the buy and, along with Bryant, identified the substance as heroin. But when investigators went back to talk to Bryant, he admitted that he'd actually retrieved two bags of heroin from the center console of Goines' car, at the instruction of another officer. Though he then took the two bags of drugs for testing to determine that they were heroin, he eventually admitted that he had never seen narcotics in question before retrieving them from the car. That, the investigator noted, contradicts the search warrant affidavit filed before the raid, which indicates that Bryant "recognized the substance purchased by the CI as heroin." The new warrant, signed by a Special Investigations Unit Homicide officer, asks for photos, texts, call logs, and emails from Bryant's phone.
Seems like HPD investigating itself is not the way to get to the truth. Harris County Sheriff, Harris County DA, a specially empaneled grand jury, Texas Rangers...? Acevedo harped on "guns" at his press conference, it wasn't the guns as SG noted.

Bisbee: "Can this actually be an example of why the 2nd Amendment exists? To give the police pause to seriously consider the consequences of kicking in someone’s door?" Almost 50% of citizens have at least one gun in their home so if current LE practices continue there will be more deaths. And some of those deaths have been cops, one case in 2013 where Burleson County TX deputies raided a home and a deputy was shot and killed. Thankfully the home owner had Dick DeGuerin to defend him and the grand jury refused to indict him for capital murder.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opi ... 4ddbac1764
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: A fatal Houston drug raid is a familiar story of needless violence, death and destruction

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Rantings of a defense attorney in Houston.
If anyone knows how this shit works in Houston, it should come as no surprise that the officers went to a judge in the municipal courthouse (where the primary business of the day is traffic court) to find a judge who would sign the warrant without asking any pesky questions about probable cause or the need for a "no-knock" warrant. Needless to say, they found a very pliant judge on Lubbock Street. Since the jump-out boys were from narcotics, no one was wearing bodycams at the time of the raid. I get it. The last thing the police want the public to see is just how much of a shit show these raids turn into.

And now an unnamed officer involved in the raid has been relieved of duty pending an investigation into the botched raid. For those of y'all keeping score on this, the search warrant said the police believed that heroin and handguns would be found in the house. Neither were. If anyone out there has any delusion that the police follow a rigid procedure in obtaining evidence, drafting a warrant application and discussing with a judge why the warrant needs to be served, you may now put your glasses back on and witness just how this process works.

In reality the warrant applications filed by the police - and prosecutors - are fill-in-the-blank cookie-cutter forms where the affiant cuts and pastes the basis of his suspicion. This suspicion can rarely be backed up by anything resembling articulable facts. These affidavits are presented to judges who preside over traffic courts who sign them without raising any questions. The result is what happened in Houston last month. This should be Exhibit A in a lesson as to why the war on drugs has been an abject failure.
http://kennedy-law.blogspot.com/2019/02 ... -raid.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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