Houston, TX

The Houston Police Department (HPD) has $16.2 million in documented police misconduct settlements between 2010 and 2025, according to records from the National Police Funding Database and Houston Public Media. Texas's relatively weak public records laws limit the completeness of this dataset - the true total is likely higher. The documented total is dominated by two data points: a $3.2 million settlement recorded in 2010, and a $13 million federal jury verdict awarded in November 2025 to the family of Charles Payne Sr., a 75-year-old man killed in a crash caused by a Houston police vehicle.

The most significant ongoing exposure in the Houston dataset is the Harding Street raid civil trial. On January 28, 2019, Officer Gerald Goines obtained a no-knock search warrant for a home in the Pecan Park neighborhood by fabricating a confidential informant who he claimed had purchased heroin there. In reality, no informant existed and no heroin was found. When officers raided the home, homeowners Dennis Wayne Tuttle, 59, and Rhogena Ann Nicholas, 58, were killed. Five HPD officers sustained injuries. A subsequent investigation found that some officer injuries may have been caused by friendly fire, and that Tuttle's rifles had not been fired.

Goines was convicted of felony murder in September 2024 and sentenced to 60 years in prison. His partner, Officer Steven Bryant, pleaded guilty to evidence tampering. The review of Goines' prior cases identified 69 wrongful convictions and led to the dismissal of more than 160 pending cases. George Floyd, who grew up in Houston, was among those whose drug conviction was reviewed.

The families of Tuttle and Nicholas filed a civil lawsuit against the City of Houston in January 2021. The trial has been delayed multiple times - most recently in April 2025 when a former HPD officer sought a qualified immunity ruling. The City of Houston approved $1.7 million to defend itself and former Police Chief Art Acevedo against the lawsuit, in addition to $1.25 million paid to a law firm to file a motion for summary judgment. The settlement amount, if any, has not been publicly disclosed. For insurance underwriters, the Harding Street case represents a textbook example of institutional liability exposure from a single officer's fabricated evidence - with criminal conviction, civil trial, and 160+ downstream wrongful conviction cases all flowing from one falsified warrant.