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HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Two former Houston police officers at the center of a deadly, botched narcotics raid have been arrested by the FBI.
Gerald Goines, 55, was arrested Wednesday morning on a federal indictment related to the raid, his attorney Nicole DeBorde confirmed.
Goines has been indicted on federal civil rights charges and stands accused of depriving the victims of their constitutional right to be secure against unreasonable searches.
If convicted of the civil rights charges, Goines faces up to life in prison.
Goines has also been charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He's accused of lying to get a search warrant to go into the victims' home.
Steven Bryant, 46, is the second former HPD officer facing charges in the Jan. 28 raid that caused the deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, who were inside their home at 7815 Harding St. in southeast Houston.
A 53-year-old woman named Patricia Garcia has also been arrested in connection with the raid. Garcia is accused of conveying false information by making several fake 911 calls.
Gerald Goines is charged with felony murder under state law and has been charged with civil rights violations under federal law.
Steven Bryant is charged with tampering with a government record under state law and now has also been charged federally with obstructing justice by falsifying records.
Meanwhile, prosecutors have said the other officer, Bryant, falsely submitted a document about drugs found on Harding Street two days after the raid already happened. Prosecutors allege Bryant retrieved some heroin from Goines' car on Jan. 30, then wrote up the drugs as evidence in the Harding Street raid, and submitted to the police department.
However, court records show Bryant admitted to investigators that he never participated in the narcotics investigation at 7815 Harding, and that he admitted to making "a mistake" in the collection of the drugs.
originally posted by: jjkenobi
a reply to: Lazarus Short
Dude what? If they were all complicit sure, but if the other police were unaware that makes zero sense.
The rule of felony murder is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions that broadens the crime of murder: when an offender kills (regardless of intent to kill) in the commission of a dangerous or enumerated crime (called a felony in some jurisdictions), the offender, and also the offender's accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder.
The concept of felony murder originates in the rule of transferred intent, which is older than the limit of legal memory. In its original form, the malicious intent inherent in the commission of any crime, however trivial, was considered to apply to any consequences of that crime, however unintended.
originally posted by: Lazarus Short
I know that if a criminal gang kills someone, the whole group is considered guilty of murder.
originally posted by: BomSquad
a reply to: tanstaafl
To be honest, I wasn't saying anything in that first post beside listing the accepted definition of what "felony murder" is.