HOUSTON, Texas – Gerald Goines is a name you will hear a lot in the coming weeks as he and his legal team prepare for a murder trial related to the infamous Harding Street raid.
This trial comes more than five years after the raid that left Dennis Tuttle and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas, dead and five police officers injured. Goines, a veteran police officer who later retired, was charged the same year with premeditated murder, tampering with government records and engaging in organized crime.
Goines, who joined the Houston Police Department in 1984, often worked undercover in the narcotics unit, conducting drug buys and working with confidential informants to gather information on Houston’s drug dealers.
Goines also prepared the search warrant for the Harding Street raid, claiming that a confidential informant was buying drugs at the home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas. During the raid, which required a no-knock search warrant, Goines was shot in the neck in an exchange of gunfire.
After the raid, Goines admitted that the search warrant information was false and that there was no confidential informant. Investigators reported that only small amounts of marijuana and cocaine were found in the house.
Goines retired from the Houston Police Department in March 2019.
Months later, in August 2019, he was charged with the murder of Tuttle and Nicholas. He is also accused of fabricating evidence for the raid, falsifying reports and participating in a conspiracy to falsify the overtime records of the officers involved.
Family and friends of Tuttle and Nicholas have repeatedly stressed that the couple, who had been married for 20 years, were not criminals but animal lovers who lived a quiet, simple life before they were killed along with their dog.
Since the deadly raid, an internal investigation by the Houston Police Department’s drug enforcement division has revealed systematic corruption within the unit.
The botched raid also led to a deeper investigation into Goines’ past, which resulted in the exoneration of two men who had been wrongfully convicted based on his testimony. In total, 14,000 cases involving Goines were reviewed.
Twenty years ago, in 2004, KPRC 2 News learned that George Floyd was arrested by Goines on drug charges. Floyd’s case was one of hundreds that prosecutors were working to solve, according to Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
Since 2019, the Harris County Public Defender’s Office has represented over 30 people in cases related to Goines. Eighteen of those cases were dismissed by the appellate court and subsequently dismissed by the prosecution, while three were overturned by the lower courts.
In May, five years after the raid, state District Judge Veronica Nelson dismissed the two previous murder charges against Goines, 59, who has always maintained his innocence.
The dismissal came after Goines’ lawyers argued that the charges were flawed and pointed to the misuse of the underlying allegation of tampering with government records to support the murder charge.
A week later, in April, a grand jury again indicted Goines on two counts of murder.
Goines’ trial is scheduled to begin on September 9, 2024.
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