A mentally ill California man has won nearly $1 million after settling a lawsuit linked to a brutal police interrogation in a murder that never happened.
On August 8, 2018, Tom Perez Jr. reported his father, Tom Perez Sr., missing to police in Fontana, California, a suburb of San Bernardino. When police arrived at the home where father and son lived, they reportedly found Perez Sr.’s cellphone, wallet and bloodstains. A police dog also picked up an odor “reminiscent of human remains,” court documents state. Huffington Post.
“If they wanted, they could get you or me to confess to killing Abraham Lincoln.”
Perez Jr. was then taken to police headquarters for questioning, where he was subjected to hours of grueling questioning about the alleged murder of Perez Sr.
During the interrogation, the officers, whose identities have not been released, repeatedly told Perez Jr. that his father had been stabbed to death and that he had killed him. “I just told you I found your dead father and you don’t care,” he said. A detective Said.
Perez Jr. was never formally arrested on suspicion of murder and maintained he had no memory of doing so, but police said he was simply suppressing painful memories.
At least once, Pérez Jr. asked for psychiatric medication but was denied. The potential withdrawal of medication and the pressures of interrogation eventually caused Pérez Jr. to have a serious mental breakdown. He began ripping his shirt off, hitting himself, and pulling his hair. Video evidence is.
But police pressure did not subside. In fact, they arrested Pérez Jr.’s friend in an attempt to extract a confession. “The police say they have enough evidence,” the friend allegedly warned Pérez Jr.
Investigators brought Perez Jr.’s pet dog into an interrogation room and threatened to euthanize it if he did not confess to the murder charges.
“How can you sit there saying you don’t know what happened, how can you sit there knowing that your dog is sitting there looking at you and you killed your father?” the officer asked.
“Look at your dog. She knows because she was walking around in blood.”
Driven to the brink, Perez Jr. finally gave the police what they wanted: a confession to killing his father. Shortly thereafter, officers left him alone in the interrogation room, at which point Perez Jr. tied his shoelaces together and attempted to hang himself, according to court documents.
Investigators thwarted the suicide attempt and committed Perez Jr. to a psychiatric hospital, where he remained for three days. During that time, officers barred Perez Jr. from contact with family and friends, and he was consumed with grief after he assumed both his dog and his father were dead.
But that wasn’t the case: Not only was his dog taken to a shelter and later rescued, but Perez was soon found in El Monte, California. He had simply gone to visit a “female friend,” his daughter told police.
Perez Jr. was eventually informed that his father was alive, released from custody, and reunited with his dog. Rather than let bygones be bygones, Perez Jr. quickly filed a lawsuit against the City of Fontana over the horrific experience, and last summer Judge Dolly G He ruled that a jury would likely find the brutal interrogations to amount to “unconstitutional mental torture.”
Nearly six years after the incident, Perez Jr. agreed to a $900,000 settlement last Thursday, his attorney, Jerry Steering, announced. In the announcement, Steering reiterated Judge Gee’s ruling and claimed police used “psychological torture.”[ed]”They coerced Perez Jr. into making a false confession.”
Steering also accused police of employing deliberately cruel interrogation methods: “They’re not amateurs, they know what they’re doing and how they do it,” he explained.
“If they wanted, they could get you or me to confess to killing Abraham Lincoln.”
Fortunately, Perez Jr. is now “doing well,” Steering said, adding that his client agreed to the settlement because it “increased the likelihood that Fontana Police will be successful on appeal.”
The city of Fontana and the Fontana Police Department did not respond to requests for comment from HuffPost and KCAL News.
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H/T: Colin Rugg
