Author Topic: Woman who lied in 911 calls about Harding Street neighbors sentenced to 40 months in federal prison  (Read 965 times)

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Offline Elderberry

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Houston Chronicle by St. John Barned-Smith 6/8/2021

More than two years before, in the thrall of drug addiction and alcohol, she had called police and told them her neighbors were drug dealers. That her daughter — she had no daughter — was in a neighbor’s house, and police needed to rescue her. That they had guns. And that police would probably need to swarm the house unannounced, because the people inside might resist.

When she’d made the call, she wasn’t in her right mind, she told U.S. Judge George C. Hanks. She’d made a bad decision. She’d never meant for police to storm into the house of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas weeks later, and turn their home into a shooting gallery, killing them.

“I'm so sorry for my 911 call,” she said. “And the false calls I made.”

Hanks was unmoved. He didn’t believe her, he said.

Hanks sentenced Garcia to 40 months in federal prison, and three years supervised release, significantly more than the 10 to 16 months imprisonment and home confinement for which Garcia’s public defender had argued.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Woman-who-lied-in-911-calls-about-Harding-Street-16233347.php

Online Smokin Joe

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40 months? Two people died as a result of those calls. Should be more like 40 years!
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline sneakypete

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40 months? Two people died as a result of those calls. Should be more like 40 years!

@Smokin Joe 

I agree. IMO,"accomplice to murder x 2" would have been an appropriate charge.

BTW,I also think the cops in a leadership position that authorized the SWAT Raid need to be charged as accomplices,also.

Are we REALLY supposed to believe the cops spent a week or more watching that couple and their home as well as doing background searches on them,and STILL pulled a no-knock ASSAULT with armed SWAT officers on their house?

WTH ever happened to knocking on the GD door and showing a search warrant?

ANY cop that took part in that raid needs to be ashamed of themselves.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2021, 03:01:22 am by sneakypete »
Anyone who isn't paranoid in 2021 just isn't thinking clearly!

Offline Free Vulcan

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She'd have gotten a lot more from me.

I call bs, are you yelling me they couldnt tell she was drunk + high, and constantly escalating the accusations?

Sounds like the popo wanted to raid that house for some macho time.
The Republic is lost.

Offline sneakypete

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She'd have gotten a lot more from me.

I call bs, are you yelling me they couldnt tell she was drunk + high, and constantly escalating the accusations?

Sounds like the popo wanted to raid that house for some macho time.

@Free Vulcan

BINGO! Adrenaline junkies looking to get their "fix" taken care of.
Anyone who isn't paranoid in 2021 just isn't thinking clearly!

Offline Elderberry

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Pecan Park raid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecan_Park_raid

Incident

    This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2019)

The officers expected to find illegal drugs at the house, but the informant stated to have been the source of the complaint could not be found, and no drugs were present.[1] Later information showed that one of the officers had lied so he could get a warrant for the no-knock raid.[10][11] 54-year-old Gerald Goines, named in court documents related to the case,[12] was accused of making false statements on the affidavit.[13]

After the officers entered the home, they shot a dog owned by the couple. According to the HPD's version, Tuttle was armed and engaged the officers, while Nicholas was unarmed and apparently shot when reaching for a wounded officer's shotgun.[14] The policemen suffered a total of four bullet wounds from a man who was armed with a six-shot revolver.[10]
Victims

Tuttle sustained up to nine bullet wounds. His head and neck; his chest; his left-side shoulder, forearm, hand, thigh, and buttock; and his right wrist were affected by gunshots. Other injuries include "minor blunt force" ones hitting his left ear, extremity wounds, bullet grazing on the right forearm, neck lacerations possibly caused by a necklace, and upper left-side abdomen abrasions.[2]

Nicholas sustained two bullet wounds, with other injuries tentatively attributed to bullet fragments. Nicholas had been hit in the thigh and chest, and fragments may have affected the right-side leg and thigh.[2]

The injured police officers were treated at Memorial Hermann–Texas Medical Center.[6] Four of them had received injuries from bullets and another had a knee injury.[15] Houston's police chief, Art Acevedo, said a backup police officer shot Nicholas.[6]

Investigations

The autopsies of Tuttle and Nicholas were done on January 29 and January 30, 2019, by Dr. Dwayne Wolf, the deputy chief medical examiner of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston. KHOU-TV received the reports on May 2.[2] The Houston Police Department conducted its own investigation. On May 15, 2019, HPD announced that the investigation had concluded, with the information given to prosecutors.[16]

The Tuttle and Nicholas families hired a forensic team headed by Mick Maloney formerly of Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). The team processed the crime scene 10 May 2019, three months after the raid. They were surprised to find evidence left behind or abandoned by the earlier Houston Forensic Science Center police investigation. They mapped out the trajectories from the bullet holes in the walls with the goal to reconstruct the shooting by matching bloodstains and bullet trajectories in the house to the wounds of the victims. The team spent four days reviewing the evidence. Attorney Chuck Bourgue told the Houston Chronicle they found no evidence anyone in the house fired toward the door nor that Tuttle's two rifles and two shotguns had even been fired. The team did find evidence that suggests police outside the house fired blindly through the walls.[17]

Legal action

On July 24, 2019, the federal grand jury investigating the raid heard testimony from Houston police officers.[18] On August 23, 2019, District Attorney Kim Ogg announced that officer Gerald Goines had been charged with two counts of felony murder. Also, officer Steven Bryant had been charged with evidence tampering for "knowingly providing false information" in a police report.[19] In November 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Goines as well as others as part of the organization's investigation.[20]

On November 20, 2019, a federal grand jury returned indictments on federal charges in the Pecan Park raid case. Goines was charged with making false statements and depriving the victims’ constitutional right to be secure against unreasonable searches. Steven M. Bryant, another ex-HPD officer, was charged with making false statements and obstructing an official proceeding with further false statements. Patricia Ann Garcia was charged with making several fake 911 calls including the false claims that her daughter was in the Tuttle residence doing drugs and that the Tuttles were drug addicts who possessed machine guns. Authorities took the three into custody.[21] Goines was charged with seven counts total; he surrendered to the FBI at his residence.[22]

In January 2020, a Harris County grand jury indicted, under Texas law, Goines and Steven Bryant, charging both with tampering with government documents and the first with felony murder.[23]

The relatives of the deceased filed the first document in a lawsuit against the municipal government in July 2019.[24]

In July 2020, an additional 17 criminal counts were filed against six of the officers.[25]

In March 2021 Patricia Ann Garcia pleaded guilty to her offense, and in June was sentenced by George C. Hanks Jr., the federal judge, to 40 months of federal prison.[26]