When Black Cops Kill White People
A recent murder conviction in Houston, Texas highlights racism in the justice system, even for cops who commit crimes
A story I covered for the last five years has concluded in what many people have deemed as justice being served. And in many ways, it is. For the families of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, the white couple killed in a botched raid, it certainly is. But for the family of Breonna Taylor, it highlights what happens when Black cops do the killing compared to when white cops wrongfully target Black families.
A few years ago I wrote an article titled, “When Black Cops Kill” focusing on Black cops killing Black people and how they often get away with it. But when Black cops kill white people, the full force of the system is used against them. Despite former Houston police chief Art Acevedo seemingly trying to help cover up the extremely violent 2019 botched raid to protect the police department itself, the murder of two white people was not going to occur without justice.
It’s worth noting that Acevedo blamed Tuttle and Nichols for their own deaths.
The case of former narcotics officer Gerald Goines is an explosive one not just for the murders of Tuttle and Nichols, but also for his history of framing Houstonians to pad his arrest record while lying in court to secure their convictions. Cops lying in court is nothing new. Officers themselves call it testilying and some have admitted to using the tactic to ensure they get people off the streets that an officer may think doesn’t deserve their freedom.
Since the murderous raid that killed two in what Houstonians refer to as the Harding Street Raid, 22 drug convictions based on Goines’s testimony have been overturned. Meanwhile, hundreds of Goines’s cases are under review. According to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle, Goines secured nearly 100 no-knock warrants based on information obtained by informants who claimed they had seen firearms in the residences targeted.
He only recovered guns once.
Similarly, in testimony heard during his trial, Goines admitted there was no such informant that he said bought heroin from the couple and allegedly saw firearms in the Harding Street home. While there were guns in the house – Tuttle used them to defend his home from what he thought was a home invasion – the weapons Goines reported to be in the home were never found.
Neither was any heroin.
All of the evidence in the Harding Street Raid lines up precisely with the tactics used in the Breonna Taylor case with two exceptions – a Black cop and white victims. When a white cop used the same methods as Goines used and killed a Black woman in her home as she lay in bed, the court threw the evidence aside and prosecutors only charged the officer with wanton endangerment, and was later cleared of the charges.
Meanwhile, police unions jump at the chance to get to the media first and drive narratives before the facts are laid out for the public to see. When Botham Jean was killed in his own apartment by Amber Guyger, the police union president was at the crime scene before investigators could secure it. The union began driving narratives about Jean to paint him in a negative light.
In Atatianna Jefferson’s murder, the police union was also highly involved and had access to the evidence against the cop before charges were filed. In Jefferson’s case, police parked down the street and snuck up to her house as if they were home invaders. This was for a simple welfare check called in by a neighbor. Aaron Dean, the officer who shot and killed Jefferson refused to talk to detectives after the union was able to present him with the evidence against him.
In the Harding Street raid, the police union president immediately held a press conference and targeted activists who called for police accountability with veiled threats like “we’ve all got your number now” while also taking Acevedo’s narrative and blaming Tuttle and Nichols for shooting at police and injuring five of them including Goines. At no time did any of them accept responsibility for their threats or their lies about the victims, nor did they admit they were wrong.
“Enough is enough. If you’re the ones out there spreading the rhetoric that police officers are the enemy, well just know we’ve all got your number now. We’re going to be keeping track of all of y’all, and we’re going to make sure to hold you accountable every time you stir the pot on our police officers.” — Joe Gamaldi, President of the Houston Police Officers Union
The Harding Street Raid exposes not just problems with no-knock warrants but policing overall. It’s an industry designed with myriad problems from the beginning when it started as slave patrols and those issues continue today for the same reasons outlined here: a broad lack of accountability and an outright refusal to change the system for the better. Blindly supporting the current system, and the inherent corruption by officers and their unions is jingoist and dangerous for both civilians and cops.
That will never change with willful ignorance about the facts we see every day as the record number of people killed by police continues to climb year after year. One thing is certain, throwing more money at the institution without any accountability measures or outright reforms has never worked, nor will it despite people being killed in record numbers.
When nonwhite cops kill white people, you can expect justice. When any cops kill Indigenous people, Black people, or Latinos you can expect very little in terms of fairness.
That’s how the system was designed from day one.