Families of Harding Street Raid Victims Sue City and Houston PD Officers for Civil Rights Violations
Just shy of two years after 2019’s fatal Harding Street raid, the families of the married couple killed by Houston Police Department officers during the incident sued the City of Houston and multiple Houston cops for violating their relatives’ constitutional civil rights.
Lawyers for the families of Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle each filed federal civil rights lawsuits Wednesday night in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Nicholas family attorney Mike Doyle said he believes the two lawsuits filed Wednesday will ultimately be combined into one case in federal court; Both suits are seeking monetary damages from the city, but didn’t list specific dollar amounts.
Neither suit minced words; Doyle wrote that the City of Houston and HPD “created the custom and practice that killed Nicholas by approving, encouraging, ratifying, defending, or covering up the long history of unconstitutional conduct” within HPD’s Narcotics Squad 15, the unit responsible for the raid.
On behalf of the Tuttle family, attorney Boyd Smith wrote that the Squad 15 officers who carried out the raid used “excessive and deadly force,” and argued that all the officers present that day “are liable for failing to intervene to stop Squad 15 from violating Dennis’ rights.”
Read more: https://www.houstonpress.com/news/families-of-harding-street-raid-victims-sue-city-and-hpd-cops-11531297
