[1] St. John Barned-Smith and Keri Blakinger of the Houston Chronicle described the event as "one of the worst [scandals] to hit HPD in years".
[1] Dennis Wayne Tuttle (March 26, 1959 – January 28, 2019) was raised in the Denver Harbor neighborhood of Houston and had once served in the U.S. Navy.
[7] The raid was precipitated by calls from Patricia Ann Garcia, a next door neighbor of the couple who had had multiple bitter disagreements with them.
She made a "swatting" call to police on January 8, 2019, reporting that her 25 year-old daughter was doing heroin at the couple's house.
[8] Based on this false information, Goines, an officer with the Houston Police Department, obtained a no-knock search warrant for the residence.
To bolster the case, he lied, saying a confidential informant had obtained black tar heroin in a hand-to-hand buy at their house.
[9] The autopsies of Tuttle and Nicholas were conducted by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston on January 29 and 30.
Other injuries included "minor blunt force" trauma to his left ear, extremity wounds, bullet grazing on the right forearm, neck lacerations possibly caused by a necklace, and upper left-side abdomen abrasions.
[17] The Tuttle and Nicholas families hired a forensic team headed by Mick Maloney formerly of Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).
They were surprised and troubled to find significant evidence left behind or uncollected by the earlier Houston Forensic Science Center police investigation.
[18] On July 24, 2019, the federal grand jury investigating the raid heard testimony from Houston police officers.
[19] On August 23, 2019, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced that officer Gerald Goines had been charged with two counts of felony murder.
Officer Steven Bryant had also been charged with evidence tampering for "knowingly providing false information" in a police report.
Goines was charged with making false statements and depriving the victims of their constitutional right to be secure against unreasonable searches.
[8][14] In March 2021, Patricia Ann Garcia pleaded guilty to making the false call leading to the raid and, in June, was sentenced by Judge George C. Hanks Jr. to 40 months of federal prison.
[36] On January 16, 2024, while announcing his resignation from the Aurora Colorado police department, Art Acevedo said he'd recently been served with a subpoena to testify in a federal lawsuit the victims' families filed against the City of Houston.
[37] A week later the Houston City Council approved $1.7 million to defend itself and former Police Chief Art Acevedo against the lawsuit.
This was in addition to $1.25 million paid to law firm Beck Redden, to file a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the lawsuit.
[40] In July 2022, Houston resident Frederick Jeffery was released on bond after findings that Goines had falsified evidence and perjured himself.