George Floyd drug arrest by former HPD officer Gerald Goines being petitioned for pardon

Monday, April 26, 2021
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A Harris County attorney is reported to have applied for a posthumous pardon for George Floyd's 2004 drug arrest in Houston, which was conducted by a former HPD officer who is currently under investigation for allegedly fabricating informants.

An image and details of the application were shared on Twitter by Keri Blakinger with the Marshall Project, who added that this does not mean Floyd is pardoned. It just means that "someone has applied on his behalf. The parole board still has to make a recommendation and then the governor has to decide."


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In June 2020, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg's office said it was looking into Floyd's arrest which named former HPD narcotics officer Gerald Goines as the arresting officer.

SEE ALSO: George Floyd once arrested by former HPD officer charged in botched raid, DA says

Goines was charged last year with murder over a deadly botched narcotics raid in 2019 at a home on Harding Street. As an investigation followed into the raid, prosecutors later went on to add that 69 people may have been convicted based on the false evidence presented by Goines.



Most of the cases involve the delivery of a controlled substance and ranged from a few months in the Harris County Jail to four years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The time evaluated by the DA's post-conviction division is from 2008 to 2019.

SEE ALSO: Ex-HPD officer tied to deadly raid may have presented false evidence, convicting 69 people
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In a June 2020 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ogg concluded that Goines likely lied when he arrested Floyd on a minor drug offense, for which Floyd served time in state jail.

According to the petition filed, the attorney is not applying for posthumous pardon because "of the things Floyd did or did not do. (But,) this pardon is being sought because it is just and right to clear a conviction that is not supported by evidence with the new information that has come to light since Floyd's conviction."

A statement from Ogg's office states they fully support a request that the governor now pardon Floyd. Read the full statement below:

"As part of our ongoing investigation of police corruption exposed by the Harding Street killings, we looked into posthumous relief for a 2004 drug conviction that ensnared George Floyd in the criminal justice system so long ago," District Attorney Kim Ogg said. "Prosecutors determined in 2019 that Floyd had been convicted on the lone word of Gerald Goines, a police officer we could no longer trust; we fully support a request that the Governor now pardon George Floyd from that drug conviction."

The video above is from a previous story.
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