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Gerald Goines, who has a 35-year career in law enforcement, faces two counts of murder, said Harris County Attorney Kim Ogg. Steven Bryant, a second former officer, is accused of falsifying evidence.
CNN contacted their lawyers. Authorities said they had to surrender.
"The eyes of this community and the nation are turned to this matter, it is essential for the public to believe that we are revealing the truth about what, how and why two civilians were killed in their own homes by members of the brigade. narcotics from the Houston police 15 ", said Ogg in a statement.
Authorities earlier this year said they were reviewing more than 1,400 cases handled by Goines.
The two officers were part of the tactical team during the failed January 28 raid on a house that killed Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle, as well as injured officers on the team. Goines, whose career lasted for decades, according to the prosecutor's office, was injured in the shooting.
Goines obtained a warrant for an undisguised raid on the part of a municipal judge under false pretenses, which included including the claim of a criminal informant who had bought from him. Heroin to a man at the address the day before and who would have known that the drug dealer owned an Ogg weapon added that the police did not need to knock on a door before entering.
Ogg said that because two people had died while Goines was committing a crime – damaging a government record by getting under false pretenses – he was charged with murder for a crime. She said that a grand jury could review the capital charges.
Bryant was accused of falsifying evidence for providing a supplement to the original report after the raid, which contained lies, the authorities said. The officer reportedly testified that he had already assisted Goines in the house investigation and discovered bags containing a brown substance, which he believed to be heroin, which corresponded to the heroin purchased by an informant before the raid, Ogg said.
Police chief Art Acevedo said in February that the department was going to change its policy and force the police to raid without knocking on the door of the suspect or ringing the doorbell before getting to the door. approval of the chief or his agent.
Police said Goines had used a confidential informant to confirm that drugs were being sold to the police's home, according to affidavits obtained by CNN. The affidavits, dated February 14, detail the investigation that followed the raid.
After the raid, Goines named his informants to the investigators, but these told the authorities that they had not worked with Goines on this particular case, according to affidavits.
When narcotics agents broke through the front door of the house, gunshots broke out almost immediately.
A suspect was removed from the back of a room and came out, firing the fire, police said. The latter was shot dead while he was trying to move a policeman away from a shotgun, they said. The two suspects were killed.
The police found marijuana, five firearms and a white powder that would be cocaine or fentanyl, a painkiller, said Acevedo after the raid.
The Houston police union said it would not comment on the lawsuits against the two police officers because of criminal prosecution. But the union said it was happy that no other officer was involved.
Ogg said she had not seen a case like this for 30 years. Asked what she would say to the Tuttle and Nicholas families, the prosecutor said, "I want to tell them how sorry we are, as a city and county, for the acts that resulted in the loss of life of our family. their dear ones. "
CNN's Phil Gast, Dave Alsup, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Carma Hassan, Christina Maxouris, Tina Burnside and Jeremy Grisham contributed to this report.
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