Former Houston narcotics officer Gerald Goines is serving a 60-year sentence for his role in a 2019 drug raid that killed a middle-aged couple, Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, whom he falsely accused of selling heroin. But the officer who actually killed Tuttle and Nicholas was Felipe Gallegos, whose justification for the shots he fired at them was inconsistent with the forensic evidence.
This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit nevertheless concluded that Gallegos “acted like an objectively reasonable officer during a tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving gunfight.” Because the decision focuses on one officer’s culpability, it glides over a seemingly pertinent fact: The cops started that gunfight. The chaos they created then became an excuse for killing Tuttle and Nicholas.
The 5th Circuit overruled U.S. District Court Judge Alfred Bennett, who last year allowed relatives of Tuttle and Nicholas to proceed with their civil rights claims against Gallegos. Bennett thought those claims, which alleged excessive use of force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, hinged on factual disputes that would have to be resolved at trial…