TX - Several police officers shot, raid, 2 people killed, Houston, 28 Jan 2019 *6 officers charged*

[FleaSpirit]

That is a good point. No country that has tried to profit from prison has ever ended up well. It didn't work for the Soviets or Germany or Cambodia or anywhere else. The United States is wealthy enough that it could force everybody to drive cars with square wheels and it still would not go bankrupt, but trying to profit from prisons is even worse than square wheels on cars/

In a few years most of the tech jobs in the world will be in the newer economy using productive algorithm digital currencies, and the best minds will not promote prison societies.

 

[FleaSpirit]

Ye gads. No wonder the CA has a blacklist.

I thought "CA" was an acronym for something and didn't want to ask what it was, but now I figured it out …

California keeps a secret list of criminal cops, but says you can’t have it – East Bay Times

"PUBLISHED: February 26, 2019 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: February 26, 2019 at 11:55 am
Their crimes ranged from shoplifting to embezzlement to murder. Some of them molested kids and downloaded child . Others beat their wives, girlfriends or children.
The one thing they had in common: a badge.
Thousands of California law enforcement officers have been convicted of a crime in the past decade, according to records released by a public agency that sets standards for officers in the Golden State.
The revelations are alarming, but the state’s top cop says Californians don’t. . ."

 

[flute4peace]

I thought "CA" was an acronym for something and didn't want to ask what it was, but now I figured it out …

California keeps a secret list of criminal cops, but says you can’t have it – East Bay Times

"PUBLISHED: February 26, 2019 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: February 26, 2019 at 11:55 am
Their crimes ranged from shoplifting to embezzlement to murder. Some of them molested kids and downloaded child . Others beat their wives, girlfriends or children.
The one thing they had in common: a badge.
Thousands of California law enforcement officers have been convicted of a crime in the past decade, according to records released by a public agency that sets standards for officers in the Golden State.
The revelations are alarming, but the state’s top cop says Californians don’t. . ."

County Attorney

ETA WAIT!!!!

I had my cases mixed up!!!!!!! The CA I was referring to is for a different case in a different city In a different state. For Pete’s sake no wonder you were confused.

Can I blame it on the TBI I just found out I have? Ack?!

 

[FleaSpirit]

County Attorney

ETA WAIT!!!!

I had my cases mixed up!!!!!!! The CA I was referring to is for a different case in a different city In a different state. For Pete’s sake no wonder you were confused.

Can I blame it on the TBI I just found out I have? Ack?!

What? With all these blacklists in different cities and states it's going to be difficult for criminals to get hired.

Here's an old classic

""However, when asked specifically about the three officers who gave a confidential informant personal money, used drugs illegally and partied with minors, Chapmond said all three are doing outstanding jobs for the police department.""

One Bluffton cop used drugs, another gave a minor beer. They might not be hired today

TBI is one acronym I do know. Tennessee is a great state and any acronym with Tennessee is easy to remember.

 

[FleaSpirit]

Some observations about this case, and a theory. If anybody wants links to something that is mentioned, just ask.

There are a few problems with the investigation that are being reported in the media, beyond the 'one crooked cop' theory.

Some examples include the mysterious .357 that the homeoqner supposedly used to wound the cops and the 911 call that 'alerted' the police to the house. These and other things may indicate a wider problem.

The lawyer for Goines has used the phrase "set up" to indicate a context. Please ask for a link to that article or any other article mentioned if you can't find it.

A few years ago two Houston cops, Emerson Canizales and Michael Miceli, were caught providing protection to a drug smuggling operation. They faced up to 20 years, but strangely the prosection was mild, to put it politely. One of the two received 1 year in jail, the other got one year probation. Obviously a tiny fraction of the sentence noncops would have gotten, but possibly significant for another reason.

Another Houston police officer, Noe Juarez, in 2016 was caught supplying guns, body armor and police data to Zetas cartel traffickers.

Another, in 2017, Julissa Guzman Diaz, was caught trying to steal 8 kilos of cocaine in a careful set up by "internal affairs" type investigators. Other cases, involving other cops like Anthony Foster also involved large sums of money.

Last year Former Houston police Officer Clarence McNatt was convicted of hiring two people to kidnap and rape and torture his ex wife and a female friend of hers who was helping her leave the relationship. It appeared, and the prosecutor stated, that the goal was to kill the women, but the defense convinced the jury that the goal was "only" kidnapping, rape, torture etc. He got five years. It was a different police department that uncovered and investigated that plot.

Looking at these cases a person might notice an apparent disparity that appears to be based on race. That issue will be left out, but anybody can research these cases.

In the current case, involving Officer Goines, who is black, there appears to have been a lot of evidence, for a lot of years, that he was crooked.

So you could ask was there some motive in letting a crooked cop stay on the force?

Looking at the history of the Houston police department e.g. https://texasobserver.org/horror-every-day-police-brutality-houston-goes-unpunished

Here is a quote from that 2013 article

"No matter the reason an officer gives for firing, it's always enough for internal affairs and the homicide division... In the past six years, HPD officers killed citizens in 109 shootings and killed animals in 225 incidents. In 112 shootings officers wounded citizens; in another 104 they wounded animals. Of the 550 shooting incidents with some kind of casualty, not one was found unjustified."

Interestingly, there is a pdf of part of a trial transcript that appears high on Google results and involves the officer suspended with Goines. It is a funny example of that officer trying to explain why Houston police do not use audio or video to substantiate drug crimes. He mentions that the drug seller might search him and find the hidden recorder. A few minutes later he mentions that he had a police radio at the time under his seat. The lawyer asks if he could have left the microphone open on the police radio, etc. Ultimately the lawyer moves on.

Long story short is that a) Houston police have a consistent history of targeting minorities, b) there was a high profile article a few years ago that mentioned the lack of accountability in police shootings, c) officer Goines appears to have been a crooked cop on a short leash held by other crooked cops.

The appearance is possibly of a 'new klux klan' operation to set up some black cops to take the heat for past corruption.

This travesty is being investigated by the FBI which of course featured prominently in an article about police accountability a few years ago. Theu, like the Houston police, had a very low level of accountability for their agents involved in shootings.

If somebody wants a link to that article or anything else mentioned just ask.

 

[FleaSpirit]

One more indicaton.

This cop has a history of not turning in seized weapons.

In Texas a lot of people have guns. Among drug dealers gun ownership is probably substantially higher. And yet in all of the drug raids over many years that this officer was involved with, not once was a seized weapon turned in as evidence. KHOU 11 Investigates: Issues with embattled Houston police officer’s past no-knock warrants
The implication is that he is part of a group of officers that is selling seized items, presumably guns and drugs, 'to whomever'.

A lot of police departments in the past have had a reputation for doing that. In some places one of the biggest fears of drug dealers is getting robbed by crooked police.

This kind of thing is not done by one officer. Selling drugs or guns to drug groups pops up on radar repeateadly and requires higher level support to get past those bumps.

When there is some risk of exposure, or reason to believe an investigation is occuring, it is common for crooked group to offer a small sacrifice, let a lower level person take the fall. There seems to be an indication that is the case here.

~

Some people argue that 'there is no such thing as an honest drug cop'. The Cops Were the Aggressors in This Week's Deadly Houston Drug Raid In other words, a person who would arrest their neighbor for a personal flaw that does not involve violence and does not forcefully impose on others is, by definition, not an honest person. In this case a group of officers was willing to break down the door of a stranger on the possibility that the stranger might have been selling drugs to people who wanted to buy them.

The police, all of them, knew that the person whose door they were breaking down had no history of violence. And yet they all agreed to go along with it. That says something about their character. Combined with that, the fact that guns that they have seized somehow do not make it to the evidence room, should raise more red flags.

Here Is What Police Found (and Didn't) After Deadly Houston Drug Raid

 

[FleaSpirit]

>modsnip - citing information from a non-approved source<

Obviously it seems odd that the guy was supposedly watching tv when the door burst open and immediately he was prepared with a pistol, but then, amazingly, he managed head shots on rapidly moving targets with long guns, very extreme marksmanship if true.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-...cases-of-second-officer-involved-13661953.php

"In a search warrant for Bryant's phone data, an investigator with HPD's Special Investigations Unit wrote that Bryant told investigators he had retrieved two bags of heroin from the center console of Goines' police car at the instruction of another officer."

The first hint that it was a set up. Now they backpeddle a bit.

"Though he took the two bags of drugs for testing to determine that they were heroin, Bryant eventually told investigators he had never seen the narcotics in question before retrieving them from the car."

Here is a scenario that some people seem to be hinting at.

1) A group of corrupt cops either realize they are under investigation or for some other reason want to remove one or more of their number. Killing Goines in a botched raid, then pinning the raid and other corruption, on him, is a way to distract people investigating them.

2) They arrange a fake drug raid with the plan being to kill those cops who are slated to take the fall.

3) One group goes to the front of the house, the other the back.

4) The Tuttles are killed quickly with long guns. The person tasked with removing certain cops then has to use a handgun to wound some of his crew and kill those who are to take the blame for corruption. It looks like dumb luck plus the difficulty of using a handgun accurately that led to just a grazing wound on Goines.

5) The comments by Garimaldi, the union chief, look more than sponteneous. It looks like he had been waiting to make those comments that day. In other words somebody said to him something along the lines of 'just be ready for xyz then make some comments to back us up'.
If the publicity had mostly been kept local there would have been no problem with the plan. Once it hit national media though then some heavyweight reporters started to research and the initial narrative started to unravel.

 

[FleaSpirit]

One last comment.

Houston police chief Acevedo said he will restore confidence in 'his' police department. That certainly sounds wonderful.

You can google Acevedo Internal Affairs and eventually you get to an interesting article that mentions that he was actually an internal affairs sergeant. The current police chief of Houston was one of the people investigating crooked cops, when he was employed with the California Highway Patrol. Sounds like he knows what he's doing then.

Probe Clouds CHP Official

Here are some quotes from the article

"A top candidate to replace retiring California Highway Patrol Commissioner D.O. "Spike" Helmick has been investigated recently for allegedly showing nude photographs of a fellow CHP officer to other high-ranking officers while on duty.
Assistant Chief Art Acevedo is the subject of a $5-million civil claim involving the woman with whom he allegedly had an affair in 1995."

"Claims filed with three state agencies allege that Acevedo kept sexually explicit Polaroid photographs of the woman in the glove box of his state-issued car and showed them to other supervisors after the affair ended."

"He was an internal affairs sergeant at the time of the affair, but now oversees the Los Angeles area as one of four assistant chiefs. CHP spokesmen declined to comment on what they said was a personnel matter.

Acevedo's attorney, in a letter to the CHP's general counsel this week, demanded that Helmick stop "disseminating defamatory information which was obtained during a confidential CHP investigation ... [which] appears to be an attempt on the part of Commissioner Helmick to interfere with Assistant Chief Acevedo's intent to seek appointment.""

"The harassment claims say the woman is a 36-year-old officer from Southern California who had a six- or seven-month affair with Acevedo. She says she posed for the photographs at Acevedo's suggestion, but didn't learn they had been shown to anyone until she was approached by two CHP internal affairs investigators March 17."

"Two CHP captains allegedly have said Acevedo showed them the pictures, including one in which the woman is performing a sexual act on him."

~

So, the cop who is going to make sure Houston's trust in police is restored is actually one of the earliest inventors of 'revenge '.

Smart money says the Houston raid cops will be charged with misdemeanors, docked some vacation days, then put in administrative positions, like Acevedo. Maybe in 15 years one of them will be chief.

 

[FleaSpirit]

A final note about 'justice' in Texas.

Compare two cases.

1) Patrick Henry Murphy, Jr. is scheduled to be executed in 14 days by 'the state of Texas'.
"Patrick Murphy was one of a group of escaped prisoners sentenced to death for the murder of a Texas police officer during a robbery in 2000. ...Murphy was acting as a lookout when the shooting began."

"And, though he never pulled the trigger, Murphy was eventually sentenced to die under the controversial "law of parties." Only one other man on the robbery crew is still alive—the others have all been executed or died by suicide."

2) The police involved in setting up and murdering the two people in Houston, and probably other people over the years, are not only unlikely to be executed by the state, they are not even likely to lose their jobs, aside from a few scapegoats.

~

By any civilized measure, the crooked cops in Houston had far more responsibility for the murders they participated in than the person who they are going to execute soon had for a murder 19 years ago.

Who Is The Next to Die In Texas?

 

[FleaSpirit]

About 50 minutes til Patrick Henry "Give me liberty, or give me death" Murphy takes one for the anti vaxxers.

Who Is The Next to Die?

Worth comparing him to the folks mentioned on this thread.

Patrick Henry Murphy

Sentenced to 50 years for aggravated sexual assault, he went along with the prison break. Because he was not trusted to be violent he was given jobs by the other prison breakers that did not involve possibly having to shoot anybody.

Houston police officers / 2 named, many more implicated

The two named officers have taken retirement and will be collecting their pensions soon. They, and the others on their crew, were selected because they could be trusted to shoot anybody, including women, without moral hesitation.

With regard to 'how many people are involved in the organized corruption network involved in this raid", there was no hesitation to tie a 911 call to the raid. In other words, the cops involved knew that under normal circumstances they could say anything they needed to say with regard to 911 calls and their stories would be backed up. You can research the various versions they gave about the call that led to the raid. The most recent version was that the victim's mother called 911 and said her daughter was doing heroin in her home. HPD WARRANT: What was found in southeast Houston home after deadly drug raid

Was that true? Mother of Harding St. raid victim, Rhogena Nicholas, speaks out

 

[FleaSpirit]

He got his injection postponed because he converted to Buddhism. Pretty compelling evidence that Buddha is a heavyweight compared to other deities.

One last comment about Texas' death row.

Another fellow in line for an injection later this year in Texas is Larry Swearingen.

https://www.texasobserver.org/is-larry-swearingen-innocent/

Meanwhile, a bunch of cops targeted somebody for a no knock raid for unknown reasons, maybe the victim had words with a cop and the cop used the raid to square things, but the entire might of the Houston legal system is focused on preventing any real accountability for most of the cops involved.

Must be nice to have a badge.

 

[FleaSpirit]

Another comment regarding no knock raids and similar things.
Anybody who hunts knows that there is a bit of a thrill when hunting as part of a group and for sport. It is like a sporting event, except you are almost guaranteed to win, and there is no penalty for losing. You are going against a much weaker opponent, and the opponent is vastly outgunned. Very different than hunting 'food'.

There are a lot of no knock raids in Texas and elsewhere. They are almost never justifiable on purely rational grounds, but they are a thrill for the people involved on one side.

Here is another no knock raid in Texas.

Man identified in deadly officer-involved shooting in Killeen was known drug dealer, 'always armed,' police say

The person killed looks kind of "scary black" to most people, which is enough to justify it in a lot of places, but the chief offered more details to explain why he thought the killing was okay.

""Given the violent history that Mr. Reed has, protection of our officers, protection of the defendant and protection of our citizens is foremost," he said."

So, he thinks the person he and his people killed was a threat to his people, the defendent and "citizens".

Obviously the defendent wasn't protected. And police in the U.S. have already killed over 200 people this year and we are barely into April. Killed By Police 2019 – Killed By Police

Okay though, was the guy objectively dangerous?

"According to arrest records from Aug. 1996, Reed was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
In Nov. 1996, Reed was arrested for beating up a man over an unpaid debt, an arrest affidavit said.
Reed was arrested again in Dec. 1996 for possession of cocaine, according to arrest records.
In Aug. 2010, Reed was arrested for possession of a controlled substance.
Arrest records show Reed was arrested once again in Nov. 2010 also for possession of a controlled substance."

So in 1996 he was arrested 2 times for petty violence. Neither of those was a very serious charge, but more importantly they occured in 1996. The guy was 40 when he got killed a few weeks ago, so 23 years ago he would have been around 17.

That same year he was arrested for possesion of cocaine, which is certainly a bad thing if you don't like cocaine.

Two times in 2010 he was arrested for possessing a controlled substance, probably marijuana I'd guess.

So was the guy objectively dangerous or was it just a bunch of good old boys with high powered weapons shooting rabbits for sport under the guise of 'protecting citizens'?

Add
We don't know why the couple in the Houston raid were targeted, and the FBI and other investigators are not likely to ever release that information.

But we do have some idea of why Mr Reed was targeted. James Scott Reed v. The State of Texas--Appeal from 27th District Court of Bell County

 

[cybervampira]

Listen: Attorney for family addresses questions about botched Pecan Park drug raid

More than two months after the drug raid that left two people and a dog dead, there's still a swirl of unanswered questions: Were Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas - the targets of the botched operation - really drug dealers, as police claimed? Who made the mysterious 911 call that authorities still won't release? What actually happened inside 7815 Harding Street the day of the ill-fated raid?

This month, attorney Mike Doyle - the lawyer representing Nicholas' family - joined us on "Behind the Walls" to lay rest to some of the rumors and voice new concerns.

[...]

To listen to this interview, you can use the player on this page, search for "Behind the Walls" on Apple Podcasts or go to your favorite podcast app and click subscribe.

[...]

 

[cybervampira]

Video & timeline @ link.

Newly-unsealed warrants focus on officers' location before deadly botched raid

New details were released Wednesday regarding a botched raid in southeast Houston where four police officers were injured and two homeowners were killed.

Officers Gerald Goines and Steven Bryant, who are under investigation, are accused of foul play leading up to the raid at 7815 Harding Street in late January.

Five new search warrants were unsealed in Harris County Wednesday.

The search warrants were filed by an officer assigned to the Houston Police Department's Special Investigations Unit/Homicide division, looking into any wrongdoing.

The warrants show Houston police are looking for telephone records that would show Goines and Bryant communicated on their personal cellphones and multiple times.

According to the warrant, "Affiant is aware based on training and experience that when individuals commit an offense together, they will communicate before and/or after the offense via their cellular device... Affiant believes there is evidence of the offense of tampering with a government document contained on the personal cellphone belonging to Steven Bryant."

The additional warrants indicate that Houston police want to know whether the confidential informant No. 1, or Goines or Bryant were ever at the Harding Street address prior to January 28 as indicated in a sworn affidavit.

[...]

 

[cybervampira]

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[FleaSpirit]

There is an early public comment, shortly after the raid, from a Houston resident.

He or she said that a neighbor had claimed that long after the shooting was finished and officer poked a rifle or shotgun through a window, breaking the glass, and "finished off" one or both residents of the house with two shots. I can provide a link to the comment if anybody asks.

The following article seems to be very supportive of the police, claiming witnesses and video do not contradict police, but if you actually read the article details it seems to very much contradict some important parts of what police claim.

Aftermath of deadly Harding Street drug raid captured in exclusive cellphone video

Cybervampira, the video of the mother shows that she seems to not understand that it was not an accident that killed her child, it was corruption. She is such a trusting person and is totally out of her league in the situation.

One final point. Every day thousands of people are put in jail for a few days on suspicion of having committed one or another crime. When a police officer has actually committed a serious crime there is almost never an arrest until weeks or months later, if at all. Why is that?

Another final point. one issue that cropped up from the beginning involves the injuries to the officers. A number of online people suspect that all of the injuries were from 'friendly fire'. You can google the topic and find numerous examples. The implication is that the police fabricated the way the 'raid' unfolded, knowing that the media would help hide discrepancies, which they have. The injuries seem much more consistent with a 12 gauge using shot than a .357 in the opinions of a fair number of people online.

 

[FleaSpirit]

One more very interesting possibility is raised by one of the comments in the 'podcast' article.

A few years ago there was a cop in Miami who shot a young guy who was caring for some developmentally disabled kids.

Witnesses seemed to be perplexed about why he shot. A person who has been in Miami enough though only needs to glance at the shooting to figure it out. The cop was Cuban. The guy he shot was black. Looking at the circumstances it was clear what motivated the shot.

In a lot of places there are odd tensions between one subgroup of one race and one subgroup of another. I've known a lot of Cubans in years past and it usually isn't long until Cubans in the U.S., who are first or second generation from heavy political Cubans from Castro's time, start talking about racial issues in a certain way. Somebody might say I am making the issue up but I have heard the same things so many times from that subgroup of the Cuban population that I'm pretty sure it is a common position.

So the podcast article has some comments on the page at the bottom. One of the comments mentions ethnicities of the police involved.

Acevedo is Cuban of course. I think there are solid indications in his background that he is very motivated by seeking acceptance from the cruder ones among his peers. He is certainly also aware of the particular tensions in some places between some Cubans and some blacks.

So he, or 'somebody' he authorized, arranged a situation where a group of black cops, and a group of Latino cops, both largely unsupervised, had authority to conduct home invasions, 'no knock raids' in police parlance.

The specific supervisors would have had a ground level view of the personalities involved and would have anticipated that those people, of those ages, would spin out of control the way they did.

So, it looks very possible that Houston is doing what a lot of places do, maintaining 'good old boy' control by deliberately setting up certain groups carefully to 'commit misconduct'.

Cuba in generations past received much different treatment than most of Latin America, simply because Cuba has a much higher percentage of white people. A person can argue this or that politics but ultimately it is race. There wouldn't be such horror about admitting people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, as has been in the news recently, if most of them were white but they're not.

There is still a broad informal process of sabotaging certain groups, and there seems to be an abundance of evidence that in Houston the authorities deliberately sabotage certain groups, and that this was at play here.

 

[FleaSpirit]

One interesting point that carries over from another thread.

In places where politics is mixed into policing, both degrade. You end with more and more 'responsibilities' in the hands of police, then of political authorities.

Acevedo is from a political Cuban family. He was raised with some very specific beliefs that are predictable.

He began as a lower level cop in California with no reason to think his career would be stellar, then something changed. a picture surfaced of him feeding salami to another cop. From that moment he strangely became 'a cop with a bright future'.

No matter whether Houston people ever get around to looking into the drug raid, a more problematic issue is what use has been made of the photo? What has he agreed to in exchange for being in the good graces of whoever lit his career up? Who is it that 'helped' the career of a cop who stands out only for a photo?

 

[CocoChanel]

Couple killed in botched HPD raid memorialized 5 months later

This case has deeply troubled me,

 

[imstilla.grandma]

A former Houston police officer was hit with murder charges after allegedly lying to justify warrants for a January drug raid that killed two people and wounded five officers, prosecutors announced on Friday.

Former narcotics officer Gerald Goines allegedly fabricated information in order to obtain search warrants on the belief suspects in a home were dealing black-tar heroin. The raid resulted in a shootout that killed the house's two occupants, Dennis Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Nicholas, 58.

Goines was charged with two counts of murder, while former partner Steven Bryant was charged with tampering with a government record, Harris County prosecutors said.

"Under Texas law, if, during the commission of one felony, in this case tampering of a government record a person commits an act clearly dangerous to human life ... that causes the death of another, in his case two deaths, it's first degree murder," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg told reporters.

"We call that felony murder. Today we charged Gerald Goines with two counts of felony murder."
Ex-Houston police officer charged with murder after deadly drug raid