A California city has agreed to pay $900,000 to a man who underwent a 17-hour police interrogation that forced him to lie about murdering his father, who was still alive.
When police in Fontana, a city east of Los Angeles, questioned Thomas Perez Jr. in 2018, they recommended they euthanize Perez’s dog because of his behavior, according to a complaint and video of the encounter. Perez’s attorneys announced this week that the city had agreed to settle Perez’s lawsuit for $898,000 after a judge said the interrogation appeared to be “unconstitutional psychological torture.”
The extraordinary case of forced false confessions sparked widespread outrage, with footage showing Perez in extreme emotional and physical distress, including when police brought in his dog and said the animal was “depressed” after witnessing the murder. ”, needed to be euthanized. This didn’t actually happen.
According to a summary of the case written by federal Judge Dolly Gee, the incident began on the night of Aug. 7, 2018, when Thomas Perez Sr., Perez Jr.’s father, who lived with him, took The dog leaves the house to get the mail. The dog returned a few minutes later, but Perez Sr. did not; the next day, his son called police to report him missing.
Officer Joanna Pina, who responded to the call, described the younger Perez’s behavior as “suspicious” and claimed he seemed “distraught and indifferent” to his father’s disappearance. She and her supervisor, Corporal Sheila Foley, went to Perez’s home and took him back to the police station for questioning. Police later searched his house, claiming they found “visible traces of blood” and that police dogs had smelled the body.
Perez Jr.’s attorney, Jerry Stilling, said there was no blood in the home. He provided a photo submitted as evidence by police showing a small, unidentifiable stain on the carpeted stairs.
Perez Jr. underwent several hours of preliminary questioning while police obtained additional search warrants that allowed them access to the devices they seized. At one point, two officers removed Perez from the station and drove him to various locations “allegedly to investigate his father’s disappearance,” the judge wrote. Police berated him, insisting he killed his father and had no memory of the incident, and told him he did not need medication when Perez requested medical attention.
“Where can you take us for Dad?” said one.
“We’re not going to the hospital because that won’t help you,” another added.
Officers eventually returned to the police station, where Perez Jr. faced further questioning, the judge said.
The judge said video of the interrogation showed Perez distraught and crying for several hours as two officers accused him of murder. Psychotropic drug withdrawal symptoms.” At one point the police brought his dog in and one of them said, “This happened… you killed [your father], he is dead…you know you killed him…you are not honest with yourself…how can you sit there and say you have no idea what happened while your dog is sitting there watching you knowing you killed Lost your dog daddy? Look at your dog. She knows because she has walked through all the blood.
The judge concluded that during the interrogation, Perez Jr. began pulling out his hair, hitting himself, tearing off his shirt and nearly falling to the ground, at which point officers laughed at him and told him he was stressing his dog. The video shows him lying on the floor at one point, holding his dog. Officials also said he would be “charged” $1 million in restitution if he didn’t lead them to his father’s body.
Eventually, detectives incorrectly told Perez that his father’s body had been found and was in the morgue with stab wounds, Perez’s complaint states. Perez then falsely confessed and was left alone in the room, where he was filmed attempting to hang himself.
“[Perez] After 17 hours of interrogation, he was berated, exhausted and forced to make a false confession. [The officers] This was done with full awareness of his impaired mental and physical state and need for medication,” the judge wrote. “[The officers’] The behavior affected Perez so much that he lied about murdering his father and attempted suicide at the station.
Perez was then taken to a hospital for involuntary psychiatric treatment and was read his Miranda rights for the first time, indicating he had the right to remain silent, the judge said. That night, one of the detectives received a call from Perez Sr.’s daughter, who confirmed that her father had been found and was alive.
Perez Jr.’s attorney, Stilling, said the elder Perez left home to visit a friend, which is why he didn’t return, and his daughter told police he was at the airport traveling to Northern California to visit her. However, Steeling said police did not inform Perez Jr. that his father was still alive and instead isolated him in a mental hospital for three days while he believed both his dog and his father had been killed.
Stilling said detectives took the dog to the shelter, but Perez Jr. eventually found the dog and rescued it thanks to a chip on it.
Perez Jr.’s ordeal and reconciliation were first reported by the Southern California News Group.
A Fontana police spokesman and the city’s attorney did not respond to inquiries Friday or say whether any officers faced disciplinary action. Lawyers for officers David Janush and Jeremy Hale, who conducted part of the interrogation, did not respond to inquiries. A third officer involved in the trial, Kyle Guthrie, was not named as a defendant and could not be reached.
“Mentally torture Tom Perez for his false confession, hiding from him that his father was alive and well, and locking him in a psych ward because they made him suicidal, 40 years after I sued the police “I have never seen this level of intentional police abuse,” Steele said in a statement.
The lawyer said in an interview that watching the footage revealed how police can coerce people into making false confessions: “This case shows that if the police are skilled enough and they question you hard enough, they can get anyone to admit anything. matter.
