Houston, TX — As TFTP reports on a regular basis, being entirely innocent is no defense against police officers kicking in your door and arresting, beating, or killing you. As the following case out of Houston illustrates, even retired police officers and their families aren’t safe from the gross negligence doled out by cops who don’t even take enough time to read the address correctly on a warrant.
Louis Rodriguez is a retired Houston cop with no criminal record, who had not committed a crime the day Harris County deputies showed up to his home. Rodriguez is now speaking out, calling the deputies’ response unprofessional and intimidating after they broke down his front door to serve a warrant. The thing is, the warrant was not for Rodriguez, or his home. It was for another house and a completely different person who Rodriguez did not know.
“The officers are looking for a Curtis Rogers in this house and there is no Curtis Rogers that lives in this house,” said Louis Rodriguez’s son.
When cops began trying to bang down their door on Sept. 1, Rodriguez and his son began filming. Despite being told they were at the wrong home multiple times, cops smashed in the innocent family’s door with a battering ram, held everyone at gunpoint and temporarily kidnapped everyone in the home.
“They went that quickly to bust my front door down and come to my home,” said Rodriguez.
As ABC 13 reports, Rodriguez said it all happened so fast, his family was startled. Rodriguez said when he first looked out his window and heard the commotion he didn’t know what to think. It was a chaotic situation.
Rodriguez, who has many years under his belt as a cop, said officers at the door did not even make it clear that they were cops. He didn’t know who they were.
“Out of control yelling, demanding, threatening they wanted to come in. I wasn’t sure they were police officers at the time,” he said.
As the video shows, before the cops busted down the door and held everyone at gunpoint, Rodriguez’s son tries to reason with the officers, politely telling them they are at the wrong house.
“Sir, you have the wrong house,” yelled out Rodriguez’s son in the video.
This had no effect and seconds later police come barging in, and begin assaulting this innocent family.
“(They) manhandled myself and my son and brought us outside. (Then) they finally realized the mistake they made,” he said.
Though the video goes dark when police attack Rodriguez and his son, you can hear the chaos unfold as the officers threaten and assault the innocent family.
After breaking into an innocent family’s home, assaulting them with deadly weapons, and temporarily kidnapping them, police realized their blunder and left.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office issued the following statement:
Deputies attempting to execute an arrest warrant on Sept. 1 mistakenly approached the wrong home in the 21100 block of Royal Villa Drive and damaged the front door. Deputies subsequently realized they made a mistake and the sheriff’s office arranged to have the door replaced. The sheriff’s office regrets the mistake and the incident is under review.
After assaulting them in their home a captain on scene that day apologized to the family but Rodriguez says that is not enough.
“That apology didn’t suffice for me,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez told ABC13 he’s glad nothing major happened, but he can’t help to think it could have taken a different turn.
“That played on my mind. That’s another reason I was afraid,” he said.
He’s now looking for a lawyer and hoping to file a complaint with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
“I’d hate for this to happen to any family in Harris County,” he said.
Sadly, it has happened to others in Harris County, repeatedly. One of the most tragic cases of police raiding an innocent family in the area took place in 2019 when criminal thug cops framed an innocent family by claiming an informant bought drugs at their home. The Houston police department’s raid on the home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas was based on lies and they were murdered in cold blood inside their home as a result.
When police officers aren’t even safe from cops wrongly raiding their home, it is high time we start having a conversation on how to fix this massive problem.
