When Houston police took part in the botched raid that killed two civilians and wounded four officers, there was no video from body cameras for investigators to examine.

Despite spending millions of dollars on the technology since 2014 and equipping patrol officers and uniformed street crime teams, police management have yet to deploy devices among undercover units engaged in the most dangerous tactical operations.

The department hasn’t purchased enough equipment or developed protocols for undercover teams — and requires officers to turn off their devices when conferring with undercover officers assigned to an investigative division about a tactical operation or briefing.

The practice denies accountability in drug raids and hostage situations, leaves officers who claim their actions were proper undefended, and ignores common-sense best practices even in some of the highest-risk situations, according to criminal justice experts.

“That’s outrageous,” said George Kirkham, a police officer and retired Florida State University criminology professor. “The prevalence, the inexpensiveness, the ready availability of them ... Certainly they should be used in situations like this, (so) we’re not left to guess at what happened; we can reconstruct it with precision.”

Police Chief Art Acevedo said the lack of body cams on raid teams is about priorities; the department wanted to equip street officers first.

“Our primary focus on camera deployment has been first on patrol, and next on proactive street crime units,” he told the Houston Chronicle. “Those are most likely to be involved in use of force cases.”

The push for body cameras started in 2015 when Houston City Council approved a $3.4 million contract with plans to buy 4,100 devices, but put those plans on pause in 2017 after Acevedo raised concerns about issues with the cameras’ battery life.

The department currently has equipped 2,650 of the department’s 5,200 officers with the devices, said Kese Smith, an HPD spokesman. There are an additional 400 devices in reserve.

Unanswered questions

The question of when police should record interactions with the public has come to the fore again in Houston after the Jan. 28 drug bust that ended with two people dead and five officers injured — four by gunfire.

Police secured a no-knock warrant after a confidential informant made a controlled buy of what was reported as heroin at the house on Jan. 27, authorities said. The next day, police used that purchase as a key piece of their request for the warrant, laying out their reasons in a three-page sworn affidavit.

The informant also warned police of a “large quantity” of drugs inside, packaged in plastic baggies, and a 9mm handgun, according to the court filing.

Undercover narcotics officers burst into the suspected drug den the next day, and a gunfight immediately ensued. By the end of it, the house’s residents — Dennis Tuttle and his wife Rhogena Nicholas — were dead. Four officers were shot; two remain in the hospital.

After the shooting, police said they found 18 grams of marijuana, 1.5 grams of cocaine, along with several firearms — but no heroin. Friends of the couple disputed assertions by police that they were drug dealers.

In the days after the raid, police relieved one officer of duty in light of “ongoing questions” surrounding the Harding Street bust. His suspension came amid a probe into questions over whether the sworn affidavit used to justify the no-knock warrant may have contained false information, according to law enforcement sources.

Monique Caballero, a friend who’d known the couple for about five years, said body cams could have helped answer many questions that still remain.

“The whole reason why police have body cams is to back up that what they did was correct,” Caballero said. “When you don’t wear body cameras that goes to show that you might do something that’s not legal and you have no accountability for your actions.”

‘A best practice’

If police are willing to use body cameras in lower-risk interactions on the street, experts said, then it only makes sense to use them in even riskier scenarios such as raids.

“It’s pretty commonly considered a best practice to record those raids,” said Scott Henson, executive director of the nonprofit justice group Just Liberty. “It’s a high-stakes thing. Someone could lose their life — as these two people did in this raid. So you want to dot every ‘i’ in that situation.”

Phillip Lyons, dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Sam Houston State University, said it seemed “odd” to forego cameras in high-risk situations — but highlighted a few justifications police might cite.

“If they have body cameras, then there will be recordings and those could have implications,” he said. For instance, police could object to the possibility of revealing tactics.

Houston Police Officers’ Union Vice President Doug Griffith said that while he didn’t believe body cameras were appropriate for everyday use by undercover officers, he did support using them during warrant raids and similar operations.

He said he was concerned by the possibility of defense attorneys disseminating body camera video and outing undercover officers.

“Everybody who does a warrant should have a body cam on,” he said, adding that he favors laws that would allow the department to blur the faces of undercover officers before giving the videos to defense attorneys. “You’re putting your people at risk if you do a search warrant and their faces are seen. You’re asking them to go buy dope from crooks. That’s a problem.”

Sam Walker, a police accountability expert and professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, downplayed those concerns.

“A raid is a public event. You’re outing yourself, and certainly the people or person inside is going to see it,” he said. “There’s going to be courtroom testimony… so I think that outing fear is misplaced.”

Lack of consistency

There’s little consistency among law enforcement on bodycam policies and even less when it comes to their use in non-patrol settings.

Policies among individual police departments vary widely — and some have ended up getting rid of the devices because of the high costs of digital data storage.

The military uses them in some scenarios, and so do prison guards. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t use them for task forces or SWAT teams, but if uniform deputies go along on a tactical raid then they’d typically wear them. There’s no policy outlining how undercover deputies might use them in tactical raids.

“It’s a conversation that we need to have,” said spokesman Jason Spencer, “and it’s part of a larger conversation about equipment needs.”

The U.S. Department of Justice provides millions in grants to municipal departments to buy and use body cameras but has been far more wary about outfitting federal law enforcement officers with the devices — and in joint operations with local departments, has asked officers not to wear them.

That’s another challenge the department will have to sort out, Acevedo said.

“One question on the table is, ‘What will the impact be in multi-jurisdictional teams or operations?’” Acevedo asked.

About six weeks ago, he ordered his staff to review how other large departments handle body camera policies, particularly regarding search warrants and use by undercover units. He hopes to create a policy to be used in Houston and by other members of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, of which he is the current president.

When that review will wrap up is unclear.

st.john.smith@chron.com

keri.blakinger@chron.com