Footage might exist of infamous Harding Street raid in Houston, court testimony suggests

HOUSTON (CN) — As former Houston police officer Gerald Goines on Thursday faced the fourth day of his murder trial stemming from Houston’s botched Harding Street raid in 2019, Goines’ former partner made a startling admission during testimony: There may be footage of the infamous incident that left two homeowners and their dog dead and four officers wounded.

That partner, Steven Bryant, broke down in tears during testimony — leading the court to take a brief recess. But when the trial resumed, Bryant told prosecutors that Sergeant Clemente Reyna — one of the officers who breached the house — may have been wearing a personal body camera at the time.

When news of the raid first became public in 2019, Houstonians were initially sympathetic to the four wounded officers as police spokespeople painted an image of vicious, gun-toting drug dealers. But that soon changed as allegations surfaced that officers were outright lying about drug evidence and confidential informants to obtain warrants, leading to one of the biggest police scandals in Houston in decades.

To date, the only publicly disclosed footage of the Harding Street raid was taken outside the house. News of additional footage seemed to even surprise those involved with Goines’ ongoing murder trial, as the jury was dismissed so both sides could discuss the discovery.

Bryant told prosecutors that he never saw Reyna’s camera or any potential footage from it. Still, he recalled that another officer on scene, Felipe Gallegos, told him that Reyna had a body camera with him that day. If true — and if the body camera caught any footage — it could offer a look at how exactly the botched raid unfolded from inside the house.

The revelation comes just one day after body camera footage played in court showed former Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo instructing an officer to turn off his body camera roughly 45 minutes after the shooting but before he left the scene. Officer Valeriano Rios, who had been on the perimeter during the raid and remained there until SWAT arrived, told prosecutors he wasn’t sure why Acevedo told him to shut off his camera.

Bryant further backed up those claims on Thursday, telling prosecutors he’d also heard Acevedo telling officers to shut off their body cameras.

In an interview this week with Houston’s local ABC affiliate, Acevedo argued he was just following standard policy. Specifically, he was following an August 2017 policy order issued by himself — still in effect today — under which officers are allowed to turn off their camera if “approved by supervisor on ‘extended scenes’" or once an officer has finished all public contacts on the scene.

Gerald Goines is charged with tampering with a government document and two counts of felony murder after prosecutors say he lied to a judge to obtain a no-knock search warrant for the house of Harding Street. This lie, prosecutors argue, led directly to the deaths of residents Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas.

While Goines’ defense lawyers concede that he lied, they contend that Tuttle and Nicholas — not Goines — are legally responsible for their own deaths. Although Houston police initially justified the raid by accusing the couple of selling heroin, no such evidence has ever emerged.

Officer Bryant, meanwhile, pleaded guilty in federal court in 2021 to falsifying a report relating to the Harding Street raid, telling federal prosecutors that he never witnessed any supposed drug buy because he was never at the house that day. That fictitious drug buy was Goines’ chief evidence when he asked a judge for a warrant.

Testimony in Goines’ trial will resume on Friday. The trial is expected to continue for several weeks, with court dates already scheduled through September 17.