Prosecutors working with the Houston Police Department charged one of its officers with murder in the shooting deaths of two people during a 2019 drug raid, the second officer charged in relation to the homicides, CBS News reports.
State prosecutors also charged five other officers with charges relating to public corruption undercovered during an investigation into the raid that left Dennis Tuttle, 59, and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas, 58, dead. During the raid on their home, the pair engaged in a gunfight with police that left one office paralyzed and four others wounded.
The five officers will charged with falsifying records to collect more overtime pay. The indictments bring to twelve the number of narcotics officers indicted in the subsequent investigation.
Police executed a no-knock warrant on the house of Tuttle and Nicholas, falsely claiming that an informant had told them that he purchased heroin at the house. In fact, the informant said no such thing, and after the warrant was executed, police found only a small amount of marijuana and cocaine on the premises, but no heroin.
The officer who applied for the warrant, squad leader Gerald Goines, had previously been charged with two counts of felony murder in the case. More than 160 drug convictions in which Goines was involved have subsequently been dismissed.