'We are so sorry': Family of man killed in drug raid offers prayers for wounded police

FILE - A photo composite of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas released Jan. 29, 2019 by Houston Police. Tuttle and Nicholas were killed in a drug raid during which HPD officers were injured by gunfire on Jan. 28, 2019. less FILE - A photo composite of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas released Jan. 29, 2019 by Houston Police. Tuttle and Nicholas were killed in a drug raid during which HPD officers were injured by gunfire on Jan. ... more Photo: File/Houston Police Department Photo: File/Houston Police Department Image 1 of / 57 Caption Close 'We are so sorry': Family of man killed in drug raid offers prayers for wounded police 1 / 57 Back to Gallery

When Elizabeth Ferrari spoke to her brother last week, he seemed fine. The 59-year-old Navy veteran was happy and, it appeared, life was good.

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His neighbors had spotted him out and about walking the dog.

But, generally, he and his wife of 21 years kept to themselves.

They didn't seem like troublemakers.

Then on Monday, both Dennis Tuttle and his wife Rhogena Nicholas were killed in a shoot-out with police during a drug raid gone wrong.

A day later his family offered kind words for the five lawmen wounded in the drug bust.

"We are so sorry that this situation happened," Ferrari said. "My prayer is for the officers and their families."

READ MORE: Acevedo pushes elected officials for gun reform

But at the same time, Ferrari and others who knew the couple started asking questions: Had the quiet, Harding Avenue couple really gotten into heroin?

"I don't buy it at all," Ferrari said. "Not one hot minute."

The raid started around 5 p.m., when an undercover narcotics officer burst into the house with a shotgun and killed a pit bull that allegedly lunged at him, officials said.

At the same time, Tuttle ran around from the rear of the house with a .357 Magnum revolver and opened fire, hitting one officer in the shoulder.

When the shot lawman collapsed onto a sofa in the living room, a woman - later identified as 58-year-old Nicholas - reached over and allegedly made a move for his weapon, Houston police Chief Art Acevedo said Tuesday morning at a news conference at Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.

A backup officer shot at Nicholas and hit her, but the shoot-out continued. In the end, four officers were hit, including a 54-year-old, who officials identified as the case agent who breached the door while the first officers entered the house.

READ MORE: 4 HPD officers shot in southeast Houston narcotics operation, a fifth injured

It's not clear how many shots were fired, or how many officers fired their weapons.

Afterward, authorities recovered marijuana and a white powder - possibly cocaine or fentanyl - along with two 12-gauge shotguns, a 20-gauge shotgun, a .22-caliber rifle and a second rifle. It's not clear whether the couple may have legally owned them, and police didn't specify what quantities of the suspected drugs were recovered.

The whole thing, officials said, came about as the result of an undercover drug sale before the raid. In that instance, police allegedly bought black tar heroin from someone at the home. It's not clear if there were repeated sales or who the alleged seller was, but police said they first learned of the alleged drug den from complaints by neighbors.

Police did not recover any heroin on Monday.

To those who knew the long-time couple, it all came as a shock.

"I can't believe she's dead," Monique Caballero, a friend of the couple, said, as she sobbed on the phone. "They were private people. They stayed at home. They loved their dogs; they loved their animals."

UPDATE: Acevedo says one injured officer is 'in a fight' for survival

She'd never gotten any indication the couple did or sold drugs, and forcefully questioned the official narrative.

"I cannot believe this; she's not like that. " Caballero said. "She's not a drug addict or dealer."

Instead, she said, officers killed "innocent people."

Other friends and relatives offered similar disbelief.

Nicholas grew up in Mississippi, and later moved to Texas where she got married in 1990. Her first husband, Bennie Valites, said Tuesday that he hadn't seen her in roughly a decade, but he had never known her to use drugs.

After the two separated, Nicholas remarried in 1998, this time to Tuttle. She only had one prior arrest in Harris County - a misdemeanor charge for a bad check. She paid restitution for the $100, and a judge tossed the case, court records show.

Tuttle doesn't appear to have any local criminal history at all, and his sister said he'd been honorably discharged from the Navy.

He took prescription pills for injuries stemming from his time in the service, but there was no indication of any hard drug use, Ferrari said.

"My brother was a fine human being," she said. "He was a kind human, it's just a sad, sad situation."

keri.blakinger@chron.com