The Houston narcotics officer at the center of an internal police investigation — as well as an FBI civil rights probe — into a botched January raid that left two people dead has retired, his lawyer confirmed Friday.

Officer Gerald Goines retired Friday afternoon while under investigation following the Jan. 28 shooting deaths of two residents during a “no-knock raid” of a Pecan Park residence in south Houston. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing more than 1,400 criminal cases that Goines worked on over the course of his 34-year career.

Goines was relieved of duty as questions mounted about his actions leading up to the drug raid, in which a team of undercover narcotics officers burst into a residence at 7815 Harding St. after obtaining a no-knock search warrant. A gun battle ensued that left homeowners Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas dead. Goines was shot, as were three other officers, one of whom remains hospitalized.

'CLEAR HER NAME’: Mother of woman killed in botched Pecan Park drug raid speaks out

Nicole DeBorde, the attorney representing Goines, confirmed her client’s retirement.

“He has quite an extensive recovery to deal with,” she said. “So instead of fighting with that and all the administrative issues, he decided it was time.”

Goines’ retirement came a day after Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo confirmed that he expected more than one officer to be criminally charged for their actions in the ill-fated raid. After court documents related to the investigation were made public in February, Acevedo said he expected the case agent would likely face criminal charges for allegedly lying about using a confidential informant to conduct an undercover buy at the Harding Street residence.

The Pecan Park bust — and the officers’ actions — have drawn scrutiny because police did not find any heroin, only a small quantity of cocaine and marijuana. Investigators later were unable to find the confidential informant whom police said they relied upon to obtain a search warrant.

Officer Steven Bryant, who participated in the raid and was also relieved of duty as questions mounted, retired earlier this month.

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

That, however, was not consistent with the affidavit used to obtain the warrant for the Jan. 28 raid, in which Goines wrote that Bryant identified heroin brought out of the house.

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

Goines’s retirement is the latest fallout from the deadly raid, and comes as Acevedo has launched a wide-ranging probe into the narcotics division and its operations following the raid. The FBI has launched a civil rights investigation into the operation and the DA’s office has announced that it is reviewing 2,200 of the past criminal cases handled by Goines and Bryant.

FALLOUT: Acevedo reveals new no-knock raid policy

Acevedo has dramatically curtailed no-knock raids and said that he will equip raid teams with body cameras to record the operations. None of the narcotics officers who conducted the raid was wearing a body camera.

Two other narcotics officers, including Goines’ longtime former partner, have also quietly retired from the department in recent weeks, one under investigation for an unrelated matter, according to police documents and sources. Each officer had more than 20 years experience with the department.

Michael Doyle, the attorney representing the family of Nicholas, who died in the raid, offered a succinct comment on the news.

“That doesn’t really answer any questions or change anything,” he said.

Acevedo was not immediately available for comment Friday evening, and officials with the Houston Police Officers’ Union declined to comment.

James Pinkerton contributed to this report.

st.john.smith@chron.com