If it's anything like The Wire, the officers are liable. I sure hope their CI isn't named Fuzzy Dunlop.
Smells like the "heroin purchases" upon which this raid was reportedly founded were possibly bogus. Oh, your daughter is doing drugs in somebody's house, woman who won't give your name? Better send five officers over to kick in the door! What?
"They weren't working/turned on at that time" seems to be a common excuse. That's something I would like to see legislated as mandatory, with exceptions for undercover officers and possibly other situations.
Yeah, that's a massive red flag, and they shouldn't be able to work if the cam isn't on. It protects them more than it does the people they deal with (if they're honest).
Plain clothes narcotics officers (which these guys were) don't wear the at all, from what I gather from reading what others have said.
Perjury is a felony, right? It'll never happen, but it sounds to my amateur ear like there might be a couple of murder charges looking for someone who might have played fast and loose with facts.
As someone in the juror pool, I would NEVER convict anyone the courts are trying that had officers with their body cams off....EVER. DD
They prep for a raid, right? Get body armor on, etc...how can they not clip on a body cam? And they also had a patrol car in the background flip on their lights and start yelling via their loudspeaker. This isn't like they were deep cover and decided to bum rush a house like in some movie.
First you described an Arrest Warrant. Now you are describing a Covert Entry Warrant. They didn't have either one of those Warrants. Maybe just try to accept that this is standard practice for reasons, and you're not going to solve this from your couch. You can't sneak-in when no one's home with a standard search warrant. That would be a covert-entry search warrant (Sneak and Peek), which don't allow collection of drugs/money, and used mainly to get info to go back to judge for the standard search warrant.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/...t-raid-turned-shootout-after-warrant-reviewed The story from Houston Police Department narcotics officers surrounding a drug raid-turned-shootout that left five officers injured and two people dead doesn’t add up, according to a warrant reviewed by Channel 2 Investigates on Friday. In the legal documents obtained by Channel 2 Investigates, a sergeant stated that he along with his partner were unable to track down any confidential informants involved in a drug buy at the home of 58-year-old Rhogena Nicholas and 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle. Both were killed in the shooting that also resulted in the shooting of four HPD officers. In the warrant, the sergeant went on to say Officer Gerald Goines of HPD’s Narcotics Division provided officers, including Lt. Marsha Todd, a high-ranking narcotics division supervisor, two different names of confidential informants. The warrant stated the two officers, “interviewed all of the confidential informants and all denied making a buy for Goines from the Harding Street residence, and ever purchasing narcotics from Nicholas or Tuttle.” Channel 2 Investigates is still digging through the new records and will continue to update this breaking story throughout the day. _______________________________ Joel Eisenbaum: -It did not happen in the way we were all initially told. -There was no confidential informant that made a heroin buy at that house. That is a big deal because a HPD officer swore to a judge there was an informant and that police witnessed the informant buying drugs at that house. -Police are now seeking a search warrant to inspect the phones of 2 HPD officers including Gerald Goines, who is still in the hospital. -From those court documents, "...interviewed all of the confidental informants and all denied making a buy for Goines from the residence at 7815 Harding Street, and ever purchasing narcotics from Rhogena Nicholas or Dennis Tuttle" -There is no record of any drug purchase from those two. -Recovered in Officer Goines' vehicle: two bags of heroin that were in the console. Those unlogged bags appeared to have been picked up from an informant at another address and it was all under the radar. "... Officer Goines had him/her do a buy from a house on Napoleon Street...Officer Goines returned to pick up the bags of heroin approximately six hours later..." -Those bags were never logged as evidence but they are now. Why did the officer have two unlogged bags of heroin in his city vehicle as he was raiding another house? A house where it now looks like there was never strong enough evidence to go in the first place.
My goodness. Those two people were basically killed for no reason. Talk about incompetence. Wow. Now I'm just waiting for the report that says all the officers were shot by other officers. I have no faith whatsoever in the HPD or its chief. Just imagine sitting in your house minding your own business, and the door gets knocked down and bullets start flying. What a horrible way to go out.
Remember when the police officers were committing a huge ring of fraud by clocking overtime hours for each other that weren’t actually happening? Anyway yeah #Bluelivesmatter
