DA reviewing 800 cases of second officer involved in deadly Pecan Park drug raid

A small memorial of statues and flowers are shown at the front door of home at 7815 Harding Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019 where five Houston Police Officers were shot in a gun battle while serving a search warrant on Monday. Police identified the two suspects who died as Rhogena Nicholas, 58, and Dennis Tuttle, 59. less A small memorial of statues and flowers are shown at the front door of home at 7815 Harding Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019 where five Houston Police Officers were shot in a gun battle while serving a search warrant on ... more Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff Photographer / Houston Chronicle Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff Photographer / Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 42 Caption Close DA reviewing 800 cases of second officer involved in deadly Pecan Park drug raid 1 / 42 Back to Gallery

The Harris County District Attorney's Office is broadening its review of criminal cases to include the work of another officer linked to the botched Pecan Park drug raid that left two residents dead and five officers injured, officials said Monday.

More than 800 cases handled by Officer Steven Bryant — who has been relieved of duty while investigations are ongoing — are now up for review. Of those, about 30 are active cases.

The move comes weeks after prosecutors announced a review of more than 1,400 cases involving Officer Gerald Goines, the embattled narcotics agent behind the Jan. 28 raid that ended in the deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas.

"We have a duty to the people of Harris County to pursue justice in every instance, no matter how many cases this involves," District Attorney Kim Ogg said Monday in a news release. "We are going to thoroughly review each of these cases to ensure that the arrests and convictions were proper."

Prosecutors are notifying defense lawyers of the expanded review, and putting a hold on resolving any cases until the review is complete, officials said.

A Houston Police Department spokesman said officials there have taken similar actions.

"This review of cases is something HPD had already begun," said spokesman Kese Smith. "The DA's actions as announced today were both anticipated and welcome."

IN-DEPTH: Goines, HPD officer in drug raid, had previous allegations against him. Find the details at HoustonChronicle.com.

HPD officials relieved Bryant of duty as questions mounted about the circumstances behind the raid.

Officers burst into the home at 7815 Harding St. after obtaining a no-knock search warrant. A gunbattle ensued, leaving the two homeowners dead and four officers shot. A fifth officer was injured in the scuffle.

The Pecan Park bust — and the officers' actions — have drawn close scrutiny after the raid failed to deliver the expected heroin and investigators realized they couldn't find the confidential informant reportedly behind the undercover drug buy.

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.

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 were heroin, Bryant eventually told investigators he had never seen the narcotics in question before retrieving them from the car.

RELATED: HPD Chief Acevedo says narcotics cop committed likely crime by lying in affidavit for deadly raid

The scandal — one of the worst to hit HPD in years — prompted Chief Art Acevedo to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the narcotics division and promise to equip warrant teams with body cameras and to end the use of most no-knock raids. The FBI also opened a rare civil rights investigation into the circumstances behind the allegedly falsified warrant.

Houston Police Officers' Union President Joe Gamaldi declined to comment on the expansion of the district attorney's case reviews, citing the ongoing investigation, while defense attorneys lauded the broader look back.

"It's a good, sensible move and frankly everybody in that squad should have every case reviewed that they touched," said Pat McCann, a local defense lawyer and past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association.

It's not clear how long the review process might take. Last month, Ogg said she planned to head back to county leaders with a request for more prosecutors in light of the massive case review.

The push for more positions came just after a failed bid to get funding for 102 new prosecutors, a $21 million budget request slapped down by the Harris County Commissioners Court in February. At the time, Ogg argued that understaffing at all levels in her office could prevent prosecutors from evaluating cases eligible for diversion. In the aftermath of the raid, Ogg argued the new positions could help expedite the wide-ranging case reviews.

"These are individual cases; justice has to be meted out in every one," Ogg said last month. "It takes time; we need some more investigators. We can get there with the understaffing that we have, it's just going to take longer."

Sam Walker, a police accountability expert and professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said the review was a "very important" step to determine the extent of potentially compromised cases.

"If you have a sense or some evidence this officer has been involved in similar (cases)— its absolutely essential to investigate those incidents," he said. "It's an important way of getting at really systemic misconduct and what we might call repeat offenders ... It may be that some of them are not confirmed as being misconduct; it could be many."

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