Appeals court blocks wrongful death suit in Harding Street raid case

A federal appeals court on June 30 blocked the families of Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle from suing former Houston police officer Felipe Gallegos over the deadly Harding Street raid, ruling that he was protected by qualified immunity in the 80-second firefight at 7815 Harding Street in southeast Houston’s Pecan Park neighborhood.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Gallegos acted “like an objectively reasonable officer” when the shooting started, even though the no-knock raid itself was later tied to false information.

The ruling trims one of the main civil paths the families opened in 2021. Gerald Goines, the lead case agent who secured the warrant, is serving a 60-year sentence after being convicted in 2024 of two counts of felony murder. Internal investigators found that Goines fabricated a confidential-informant heroin buy to justify the warrant, and investigators found no heroin in the home after the Jan. 28, 2019 raid, which left Nicholas and Tuttle dead and four officers wounded.

Eight former Houston police officers were reindicted in October 2024 in an alleged overtime-fraud and organized-criminal-activity scheme tied to the Harding Street squad, and prosecutors later dismissed 17 charges against eight of those officers after concluding the evidence did not reach the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard.

Mike Doyle, the families’ lawyer, plans to appeal. Rusty Hardin, who represents Gallegos, used the phrase “reinforces the purpose of qualified immunity.”