Gerald Goines murder trial focuses on allegations of illegal bodycam footage during Harding Street raid

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) – Were there mysterious recordings of the Harding Street raid that no one has seen yet? That was the question that lawyers argued about in court on Friday as the first week of Gerald Goines' murder trial came to a close.

The possibility of this illegal bodycam video was raised in open court Thursday by former police officer Steven Bryant, one of the members of the drug squad led by Goines that raided the Harding Street home with a no-knock search warrant.

The homeowners Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle died in this raid and four officers were injured.

At the judge's summons, attorney Lisa Andrews and her client Clemente Reyna, who was presumably a member of the team carrying a private camera, entered the courtroom on Friday afternoon. In a hearing away from the jury, Andrews vented her anger and was clearly frustrated by a problem she thought had long been resolved.

“The only question is whether there was a camera in use on the day of the raid on Harding Street,” Andrews asked rhetorically. “I won't answer that question.”

Andrews says Reyna is in a hopeless situation. No matter how he answers, prosecutors could decide not to believe him and charge him with perjury. Andrews says Reyna could only have testified if prosecutors had granted him immunity on the matter. In court, however, prosecutors were unwilling to grant immunity.

“You saw that they had multiple opportunities to get him to answer that one little question: Did you have a body camera? They could have said you have immunity from that one question, but they weren't willing to do that,” she said.

As the jury heard additional testimony about crime scene photos taken after the raid, attorneys for both sides worked out a compromise. They agreed to state for the record that neither side was aware that additional bodycam videos existed.

The judge will read this agreement to the jury at some point during the trial, but it is unclear when.

Attorney Murray Newman, who followed the proceedings on Friday, says it is the only sensible solution to an unusual problem.

“The agreement is a kind of dodgeball,” Newman said. “It says we're not going to allow any more testimony about this incident, but both sides will agree. And we want you, the jury, to know that no one believes there was ever a GoPro or video of this entire incident that you don't know about.”

The trial is expected to last several more weeks. The jury will meet again on Monday at 9 a.m.

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