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California Man Gets $900,000 Settlement for 'Psychological Torture' During 17-Hour Police Interrogation
Reason ^ | 5.28.2024 | C.J. Ciaramella

Posted on 05/28/2024 1:03:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Detectives in Fontana, California, told Thomas Perez Jr. that his father was dead and that he killed him. Neither was true.

The California town of Fontana will pay $900,000 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit after police falsely accused a man of murdering his father, interrogated him for 17 hours, threatened to have his dog euthanized, and withheld medication from him, eventually leading the distraught man to give a false confession and try to commit suicide in the police station.

His father was alive the whole time.

The case, first reported by the San Bernardino Sun, is a particularly deranged example of how abusive police interrogation techniques can produce false confessions. Reason has previously reported how several states around the country have tightened rules for police interrogations of minors, banning deception and requiring lawyers to be present.

But even adults can be pushed into confessing a crime they didn't commit, as the case of Thomas Perez Jr. shows.

In 2018, Perez reported to the Fontana police that his 71-year-old father, Thomas Perez Sr., had disappeared the previous day while taking the family dog out for a walk. The dog had returned without the elder Perez.

Perez Jr. agreed to go to the police station to talk to detectives. While there, the police obtained a search warrant for the family's house, and based on small blood stains around the house and an alert from a corpse-sniffing dog, their suspicions turned to Perez Jr.

Video of Perez Jr.'s interrogation showed that Fontana police told him, falsely, that they had already found his father's corpse and that there was evidence pointing to him as the murderer. According to his lawsuit, he was kept in police custody for 17 hours, during which detectives berated him, refused to let him sleep, and wouldn't let him retrieve his medications for depression, stress, asthma, and high blood pressure.

"At one point while they are telling him to confess, he starts pulling at his own hair, hitting himself, making anguished noises, tears off his own shirt, and nearly falls to the floor," U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California Dolly Gee wrote in an order in Perez Jr.'s case, summarizing the video. "During this episode, the officers laugh at him and tell him that he is stressing out his dog. Later, they tell him that they are going to give away his dog."

Detectives in fact brought Perez Jr.'s dog into the interrogation room so he could say goodbye to it. Perez then confessed to stabbing his father with a pair of scissors.

After confessing, while he was left alone in the interrogation room, Perez Jr. tried to hang himself with his shoelaces. He was taken from the police station and temporarily committed to a psychiatric hospital.

While the younger Perez was in the hospital, police located the elder Perez alive and well at Los Angeles International Airport, where he was flying to Oakland to see his daughter.

Perez Jr. filed a lawsuit against Fontana in 2019, alleging that the Fontana police violated his due process rights, as well as his constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure and excessive force.

The Supreme Court ruled it was lawful for the police to lie during interrogations in 1969, in Frazier v. Cupp, a case where a man challenged his murder conviction on the grounds that police had claimed that the man's cousin had already confessed and implicated him, which was not true.

At the time, a mentally sound adult falsely confessing to a crime was considered a myth. The advent of DNA testing has shown that it is an all-too-real phenomenon. According to the Innocence Project, nearly 30 percent of DNA exonerations involved false confessions. Only a third of those false confessors were 18 years old or younger at the time of their arrest.

However, police officers' freedom to lie during interrogations does not extend to physical or psychological torture. Gee wrote there was no legitimate government interest that would justify detectives' treatment of Perez Jr.

"A reasonable juror could conclude that [the detectives] inflicted unconstitutional psychological torture on Perez," Gee wrote in her summary judgment order, finding that their "tactics indisputably led to Perez's subjective confusion and disorientation, to the point he falsely confessed to killing his father, and tried to take his own life."

According to the San Bernardino Sun, three of the Fontana officers involved in Perez Jr.'s case remain employed with the department, while one has retired to enjoy his public pension.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; californication; donutwatch; fontana; lawsuit; police

1 posted on 05/28/2024 1:03:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

As my FR comment record of somewhere around 20 years shows, I “most often” give cops the benefit of any doubt. But, assuming the reportage on this incident is accurate/true, these bastards (i.e. the cops involved), deserve at least 20 years in prison.


2 posted on 05/28/2024 1:30:34 PM PDT by Cen-Tejas
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To: nickcarraway

He deserved 9 million, in my book.


3 posted on 05/28/2024 1:36:30 PM PDT by jacknhoo (Luke 12:51; Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation.)
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To: nickcarraway

Beyond simple things like a traffic stop don’t talk to police without a lawyer present. If they come to search your house, tell them you don’t consent but will not obstruct the search. Do the same for a car search. But aside from, responding to “your taillight is burned out” or “you were speeding” clam up.


4 posted on 05/28/2024 1:41:14 PM PDT by Seruzawa ("The Political left is the Garden of Eden of incompetence" - Marx the Smarter (Groucho))
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To: jacknhoo

If this guy got $900K for just 17 hours of abuse, think of what they owe Trump for 8 years of abuse.

$9 Billion and call it good.


5 posted on 05/28/2024 1:45:48 PM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: jacknhoo

Agreed


6 posted on 05/28/2024 1:46:28 PM PDT by Husker24 (Pp)
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To: Seruzawa

Excellent, well said! Probably a good idea to watch some 1A Auditors on YouTube. Few are in Cali.


7 posted on 05/28/2024 1:52:42 PM PDT by existentially_kuffer
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To: Seruzawa
Beyond simple things like a traffic stop don’t talk to police without a lawyer present. If they come to search your house, tell them you don’t consent but will not obstruct the search. Do the same for a car search. But aside from, responding to “your taillight is burned out” or “you were speeding” clam up.

I have been working on a business card I am going to carry with me at all times to hand to a police officer when the need arises. I just added "will not obstruct" part based on your post. If I ever have to use it I will verbally invoke my right to remain silent as well as hand him the card. From then on I intend to respond "I am not going to answer any more questions."


8 posted on 05/28/2024 1:54:02 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (The worst thing about censorship is █████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █ ███████ ████. FJB.)
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To: Regulator

That $900K comes right out of cities taxpayer’s funds.


9 posted on 05/28/2024 1:55:09 PM PDT by existentially_kuffer
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To: nickcarraway

I hope the J6 hostages don’t have to wait so long to sue the derpstate Irma Greses.


10 posted on 05/28/2024 1:55:48 PM PDT by Sirius Lee (They intend to kill us. Plan to avoid this.)
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To: existentially_kuffer

Good.

That’s what those idiots get for allowing a government like that to run rampant.

LA is like that. Just can’t get anything right.


11 posted on 05/28/2024 2:05:49 PM PDT by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: existentially_kuffer

Well, the man is unstable, and now has 900k to seek revenge.


12 posted on 05/28/2024 2:27:16 PM PDT by healy61 (.)
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To: Sirius Lee

There was already a report of a bad Federal Court of Appeals ruling about that today.


13 posted on 05/28/2024 2:51:58 PM PDT by A strike (There is no tyranny that cannot be justified by 'climate change')
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To: nickcarraway

“Perez Jr. agreed to go to the police station to talk to detectives.”
BIG mistake.


14 posted on 05/28/2024 2:54:31 PM PDT by A strike (There is no tyranny that cannot be justified by 'climate change')
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To: Seruzawa

“Beyond simple things like a traffic stop don’t talk to police”

even then, best to say as little as possible ...


15 posted on 05/28/2024 3:09:26 PM PDT by catnipman (A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil)
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To: nickcarraway

Was this the North Korean police?


16 posted on 05/28/2024 3:11:40 PM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: Regulator

>>>LA is like that. Just can’t get anything right.

Not just LA. Seems every Democratic entity “just can’t get anything right.” Insanity!


17 posted on 05/28/2024 4:36:36 PM PDT by existentially_kuffer
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To: Seruzawa
Beyond simple things like a traffic stop don’t talk to police without a lawyer present.

There are many YouTube videos on this subject, detailing cases where cops hassled innocent people. "We The People" etc are lawyers explaining your rights when confronted by bad cops. If you haven't done a crime, you don't have to talk or share your ID. No warrant, you don't have to open your door (house or car). Of course if you're threatened with bodily harm by a cop then respectfully follow their stupid instructions and sue later. But you don't have to talk without a lawyer, because they'll try to snare you in a verbal trap.

I worked with cops for a couple decades, but have had encounters in public with arrogant ignorant cops. One set of rookie cops who wrongfully stopped me, I berated them for doing so because I was on my way to a meeting with a police captain; they quickly backed off. Cops need to be less arrogant and more respectful.

18 posted on 05/28/2024 5:05:48 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: roadcat

Cops on forums straight up say they don’t care what civilians think of them or their actions. The settlements don’t affect them, only the taxpayers. Their attitudes might change if we eliminate qualified immunity.


19 posted on 05/28/2024 5:36:45 PM PDT by ozarker
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