Houston Police officer Felipe Gallegos speaks as Rusty Hardin listened during a press conference at Hilton Americas, in Houston, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, to discuss the indictment handed down to Gallegos in the Harding Street case.
Karen Warren/Staff photographer
The Houston Police Department officer who fired the shots that killed two people in the infamous 2019 Harding Street raid cannot be sued for using excessive force, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
Officer Felipe Gallegos acted “like an objectively reasonable officer” during the 80-second firefight that left Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle dead and four other police officers wounded, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.
While the raid was prompted by lies — which landed disgraced HPD officer Gerald Goines in prison for murder — Gallegos is entitled to qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects government employees from civil claims while performing their duties, the court ruled.
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“Lies were told,” the judges wrote in a 30-page decision. “People were shot. Lives were taken. Yet while these events are tragic, they do not establish liability under the Constitution.”
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Barring an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the 5th Circuit’s decision chips away at another piece of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Nicholas’ and Tuttle’s families in 2021.
Gallegos was one of the officers who took part in the Jan. 28, 2019 no-knock raid on Nicholas’ and Tuttle’s home, which quickly devolved into a shootout that left four officers wounded and the couple dead.
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The shooting became a scandal after it was revealed that Goines, the longtime officer who wrote the warrant used to justify the raid, had lied about the evidence behind it. Goines was convicted of murder in 2024 and sentenced to 60 years in state prison.
A forensic photographer hired by the family of a south Houston couple killed during a botched drug raid investigates bullet holes at the home on 7815 Harding on Friday, May 10, 2019, in Houston. Houston police executed a no-knock warrant on Jan. 28, 2019, at the home during the raid, which left the two homeowners dead and five police officers injured.
Marie D. De Jesús/Staff photographer
Nicholas’ and Tuttle’s families sued in 2021, arguing their loved ones’ constitutional rights had been violated by the city and the officers involved in the raid. U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett last year denied Gallegos’ bid to be dismissed from the lawsuit, setting up the appeal.
Gallegos’ actions during the raid
Gallegos argued that his actions on the day of the shooting were justified. In motions and during oral argument, his attorneys described the chaotic moments that surrounded the bloodshed.
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Gallegos was one of the police officers assigned to be part of the entry team that breached the Pecan Park home. He was at the back of the stack that first entered the house, with four officers in front of him.
Moments after the door opened, the officers and Tuttle began firing weapons. The four officers in front of Gallegos were struck or fell down. Gallegos claimed that he stood outside the doorway of the house and saw Nicholas trying to tug at an officer’s gun. He shot her.
Gallegos then fired at Tuttle, who was behind a wall in the house, before retreating and approaching again. Gallegos said he found Tuttle leaning against a door and holding a gun. Gallegos shot Tuttle several times, moved closer to Tuttle and shot him again in the back and neck. Tuttle and Nicholas died at the scene.
The judges did not rule that the raid was justified.
While police were allegedly looking for heroin, hardly any drugs were ultimately found in the house. Goines’ role in crafting the warrant using lies was revealed in the days following the shooting.
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Former Houston Police officer Gerald Goines stands as he is formally sentenced on a pair of felony murder convictions on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 in Houston. Goines was found guilty of felony murder and sentenced to 60 years behind bars in the 2019 deaths of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas.
Brett Coomer/Staff photographer
Gallegos has never been alleged to have participated in obtaining the false warrant that led to the raid or the attempted cover-up in the days that followed.
In 2021, Gallegos was charged with murder in connection with the case. But that charge was later dismissed amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Former District Attorney Kim Ogg once said charges against Gallegos could be refiled, but that has never come to pass.
Judges note inconsistent statements
The appeals court judges noted that Gallegos gave inconsistent statements about the shooting. For instance, in the investigation of the shooting, Gallegos told internal affairs officers that he broke a window before shooting Nicholas. But during later testimony, Gallegos said that he broke the window after shooting her.
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“This discrepancy may bear on Gallegos’s credibility as a witness,” the judges wrote.
But the judges wrote that even under the interpretation of events presented by the families, Gallegos could not be held liable. The judges assumed that Nicholas was not standing over a wounded officer and reaching for his gun, according to the ruling. They also assumed that Tuttle’s hands were mangled, and he was unable to use a weapon by the time Gallegos shot him.
The court determined that Gallegos was making split-second judgments and that he would not have been able to know that Nicholas and Tuttle were no longer a threat when he started firing.
“The safety and comfort of our chambers invite a temptation to second-guess police officers and to reimagine, with the benefit of hindsight, how an officer should have responded here,” the judges wrote. “We resist that temptation.”
Ron Tuttle, brother of Dennis Tuttle, shows a photo of his brother and Rhogena Nicholas, outside the courtroom after former Houston police officer Gerald Goines was sentenced to 60 years behind bars on a pair of felony murder convictions on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 in Houston. Goines was found guilty of felony murder in the 2019 deaths of Tuttle and Nicholas.
Brett Coomer/Staff photographer
What is next for the civil lawsuit?
Decisions made by an appeals court can be further challenged through a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court only grants about 2% of the thousands of petitions it receives each year.
If the families decline to petition the Supreme Court, or if the petition is rejected, the lawsuit is still drastically reduced from its original form, which included 15 different defendants.
Bennett granted the City of Houston summary judgment in March 2025, decisia on was obscured for months amid a fight to keep large parts of the case sealed from public view.
Parts of the case, including Bennett’s decision favoring the city, were unsealed in September 2025, according to court records.
In his decision, Bennett wrote that he “soundly condemns” the city’s lack of oversight of Goines’ narcotics team, known as Squad 15 but found that the city had not acted with deliberate indifference and dismissed claims against the city.
In January 2025, Bennett dismissed eight other Houston police officers once named in the lawsuit, including other officers who participated in the raid.
Claims against two of Goines former supervisors, Lt. Marsha Todd and Robert Gonzales, as well former Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, were also dismissed from the lawsuit in 2023.
As of Tuesday, the only remaining active civil claims in the lawsuit were against Goines and his former partner Steven Bryant, who has pleaded guilty to attempting to help cover up the fake warrant.
No trial date has been set on those remaining claims. Goines is in federal custody, awaiting a criminal trial on charges of violating civil rights under color of law. Five years after pleading guilty to his part in the scandal, Bryant has yet to be sentenced.