The Houston Cop Charged With Murdering Dennis Tuttle During a Disastrous Drug Raid Portrays His Victim As the Aggressor

Felipe Gallegos, the Houston narcotics officer who was indicted this week for murdering Dennis Tuttle during a disastrous 2019 drug raid based on a fraudulent search warrant affidavit, says he lawfully shot Tuttle in defense of his colleagues. At a press conference yesterday, Gallegos’ lawyer, Rusty Hardin, described what happened after plainclothes cops broke into Tuttle’s house on January 28, 2019, and immediately used a shotgun to kill his dog. Hardin said Gallegos shot Tuttle, who according to police responded to the violent invasion of his home by grabbing a revolver and firing at the intruders, only after four officers had been wounded.

Hardin made it sound as if the cops were overwhelmed by a barrage of gunfire. But the evidence indicates that nearly all the rounds were fired by the cops, who responded to Tuttle’s defense of his home with overwhelming force, shooting blindly and wildly through the front of the house and into walls, cabinets, and the ceiling.

According to Hardin, Tuttle fired just four rounds, all of which hit his targets, striking two officers in the face, one in the neck, and one in the shoulder. That is some pretty impressive shooting, especially for a 59-year-old disabled Navy veteran who, according to a lawyer representing his wife’s family, had just been awakened from a nap.

“I don’t think he could have shot all of them,” Tuttle’s uncle told KPRC, Houston’s NBC station, in 2019. “You’re going to tell me he is capable of doing what they say he did?” KPRC noted that “Tuttle weighed only 112 pounds,” and “he had his right hand bandaged and his leg in a brace.” Yet Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo insists “there is no evidence of friendly fire in this case.”

Hardin said Gallegos was standing near the front porch, toward “the back of the stack” attacking the house. “He hears one officer yell ‘I’m hit!'” Hardin said, apparently referring to the first cop through the door. According to Acevedo, that officer was struck in the shoulder after he fired shotgun “rounds” at the dog. At that point, Hardin said, Gallegos “hears some gunshots. He then hears some more gunshots, and then officers are starting to back out.”

While the officers are backing out, Hardin said, Officer Cedell Lovings is “shot through the neck, and he falls, and he can’t move. Other officers back out. There’s more shooting.” As the cops try to pull Lovings out, Officer Gerald Goines “is shot in the face to such a degree that…part of his face hangs loose. This is what Officer Gal