A former Houston Police Department narcotics officer was sentenced Tuesday to 60 years in prison for killing two people in a no-knock drug raid in 2019, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced.
“This is historic because we believe this is the first-ever murder conviction of a Houston-area law enforcement officer committed while in uniform,” Ogg said. “We hope other victims who have been hurt or wrongfully accused or even convicted see the courage of these families and also come forward.”
Gerald Goines, 60, was convicted of felony murder after a two-week trial in September for his role in the murder of Dennis Tuttle and his wife, Rhogena Nicholas, who were fatally shot in their southeast Houston home on Harding Street on Jan. 28, 2019.
Jurors deliberated about 10 hours after Monday’s closing arguments in the punishment phase before handing down their verdict.
Goines’s conviction stemmed from lying to a judge to get a “no-knock” warrant for Tuttle’s home by saying Tuttle, 59, and Nicholas, 58, were heroin dealers, which they weren’t.
The couple were at home in the middle of the afternoon when Goines and his squad of narcotics officers burst into their house, starting a gunfight that left Tuttle, Nicholas and their dog dead and several officers wounded.
“Gerald Goines has been a stain on the reputation of every honest cop in our community,” Ogg said. “He was responsible for the deaths of these two people and for the false convictions of many others — and we believe there are more victims still out there.”
Assistant District Attorneys Tanisha Manning and Keaton Forcht, who are both assigned to the Major Offenders Division, prosecuted the case.
After the sentencing, Manning said that Goines targeted people in poor parts of Houston because he knew they would not be able to fight the police in court.
“You didn’t see this happening in River Oaks or West University,” Manning said. “Goines preyed on predominantly poor communities who may or may not have the resources to fight back — but the people in those neighborhoods deserve the same protections that everyone else has.”
Manning and Forcht noted that investigators and prosecutors searched continually for the motive behind what Goines did — why he chose them and set in motion the series of events that led to their deaths.
“We don’t have to prove a motive — we only have to prove who is responsible — but we did still try to find the motive for what happened,” Forcht said. “The only person who really knows the motive has a Fifth Amendment right to not let us know what it is, and we respect his constitutional rights.”
Goines, who turned 60 last week, will have to serve at least 30 years in prison before he will be eligible for parole.
