Posted on 02/11/2019 4:09:49 AM PST by abb
The Houston Police officers who conducted a deadly raid in an East Houston home on January 28, expecting to find heroin, only seized 18 grams of marijuana and 1.5 grams of an unknown white powder. The Houston Chronicle obtained the results of the search warrant Friday, which also showed officers found two shotguns and two rifles inside the house.
The house had been under investigation for about two weeks after HPD received information about a suspect that was allegedly selling narcotics.
A confidential informant was sent to purchase heroin from the suspect on January 27. The informant told officers the purchase was made and said there was more heroin at the house, according to the affidavit filed to obtain the search warrant. But records later showed that the substance the informant said was heroin was a brown powder, the Chronicle reported.
HPD’s Internal Affairs department and Special Investigations Unit are investigating the operation, and one of the officers involved has been relieved of duty.
Four officers were wounded by gunfire in the raid, which turned into a shootout. The suspects, Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, were killed. The couple’s dog was also killed after it attacked an officer. HPD officials said police opened fire after Tuttle shot the officers when they entered the home and Nicholas was killed when she tried to grab the firearm of one of the officers.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo spoke about the investigation, KPRC Channel 2 reported. He said the department “will get to the bottom of this with everything that went well, the good, the bad and the ugly, because that is our moral and legal obligations as a department.”
Acevedo didn’t answer direct questions about the investigation and said he doesn’t want to “piecemeal the discussion.”
OK, so there WERE drugs present. All is forgiven! < /sarc >
Why didn’t they have the search warrants ready to go when the confidential informant went to the house to make the buy?
The nation would be safer if 90% of SWAT were disbanded and no-knock plainclothes raids banned.
Four injured PO just over a small amount of marijuana. What a waste of resources.
Thinking corruption. Want to get rid of someone? A police raid sounds like an ideal way. Could have been him or her that someone wanted to eliminate.
Sigh.
I’m sorry the pooche died.
PLAINCLOTHES? In a no-knock raid?
My G-d, I, myself, assumed the ONLY way this could have happened would have been with all the cops totally Rambo'd up in their body armor and helmets and stuff, and it comes out that they were in civilian clothes?
Someone please tell me that this is not true and that these guys would never have been so stupid as to have done such a thing. I'm even going to say no, this can't possibly be true! Can it?!
And, it also comes to light that the .357 magnum handgun the man supposedly shot at them with didn't even exist?
Whoa hsit.
This is gonna turn out badbadbad for somebody. No way HPD is gonna be able to keep the facts from coming out, and they need to come out sooner rather than later before they get even more confused.
Almost even beginning to sound like something out of a movie, a crew of rogue cops doing home invasions "under the color of law"...
BUT - Let's be fair about it like we always are about everything else, all the time. The facts will come out.
But, one would think it fair to say, HPD needs to come up with some straight answers and cut their losses, whatever they turn out to be.
John Whitehead, an attorney has been defending folks for years that have been harmed by these sorts of events.
I thought it interesting that swat raids across this nation have increased from a few thousand to over 80,000 a couple years back.
Allot of it has to do with militarizing local law enforcement.
Go out and take a gander.
“The “357 Magnum” that was supposed to have been used by the victim to shoot the cop WAS NOT FOUND!”
That’s what I thought, too.
Here’s what Chief Arcevedo said after the raid.
HPD Chief Acevedo gave an updated timeline of what happened when a team of officers went to serve a search warrant at the couple’s home in southeast Houston shortly before 5 p.m. Monday.
He said the narcotics officers, a group of 15, arrived at the home on Harding Street. Upon making entry, they “immediately came under fire.”
“The first officer through the door, armed with a shotgun, was charged immediately by a very large pit bull,” said Acevedo. “The officer discharged rounds, and we know the dog was struck and killed.”
At the same time, a male suspect identified as Tuttle, came from the back of the home and opened fire with a .357 Magnum revolver.
“That officer was struck in the shoulder. He went down, fell on the sofa in the living room, at which time a female suspect went towards that officer, reached over the officer and started making a move for his shotgun.”
That’s when backup officers also made entry and opened fire, killing the female suspect. An exchange of gunfire continued with the male suspect.
https://reason.com/blog/2019/02/11/here-is-what-police-found-and-didnt-afte
Here Is What Police Found (and Didn’t) After Deadly Houston Drug Raid
The search warrant inventory does not include any evidence of drug dealing.
Jacob Sullum|Feb. 11, 2019 1:30 pm
This whole thing stinks. Is this the future of law enforcement in the U.S.?
More likely to push for gun control in homes than a squad of rogue home invaders.
“The “357 Magnum” that was supposed to have been used by the victim to shoot the cop WAS NOT FOUND!”
Odd, that.
L
No it isn’t. The cops lied.
“Is this the future of law enforcement in the U.S.?”
Future? Seems to me it just happened.
L
Sorry, I was being sarcastic.
Best,
L
Which would also be all the more ironic SHOULD IT turn out that the two dead citizens were actually murdered by a cop, AND/OR the wounded cops were actually shot by another (trigger-happy) cop.
What we've heard in general for how long... as long as I've been paying attention, is that you can't beat the forensics guys at their own game. It's just a matter of getting the right forensics guys, e.g. the Texas Rangers, on the task.
Houston PD thought to be raiding a rival operator within their turf. Wrong info.
Sounds more and more like a blotched event.
Snip
Then on Thursday, police said that one of the officers involved in the raid
was relieved of duty in light of “ongoing questions” about the deadly encounter.
The officer, who was not publicly identified, was not among those wounded.
His suspension, law enforcement sources said, comes amid a probe into questions
over whether the sworn affidavit used to justify the no-knock warrant may have
contained false information.
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Search-warrant-reveals-what-police-found-in-13601778.php
Updated 9:54 am CST, Saturday, February 9, 2019
Apparently the initial drug use came from the woman that was killed in the raid.
snip
Friday, February 08, 2019 10:23PM
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — It was a mother worried about her daughter’s drug use
that alerted Houston police to a home in southeast Houston, leading to a deadly drug
raid, say ABC13 sources.
A 911 call from the mother of now-deceased suspect Rhogena Nicholas put 7815
Harding Street on police radar. Sources close to the investigation say her mother
called reporting the 58-year-old was doing drugs inside her own home.
That call on Jan. 8 prompted a drug investigation, Chief Art Acevedo said last
week. Now Nicholas and her husband, Dennis Tuttle, 59, are dead, four officers
are recovering from gunshot wounds and everything that happened before is
being questioned.
End snip......
https://abc13.com/what-was-found-in-home-after-deadly-drug-raid-hpd-warrant/5127653/
HPD WARRANT: What was found in southeast Houston home after deadly drug raid
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