The metropolis of Fontana has agreed to pay practically $900,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a person who mentioned police pressured him to falsely confess to a homicide that by no means occurred.
Throughout a 17-hour interrogation in August 2018, Fontana Police Division officers questioned Thomas Perez Jr. in regards to the disappearance of his father, whom Perez had reported lacking. Officers alleged Perez had murdered his father and, when Perez denied the accusation, officers tried to persuade him that he had forgotten the crime, in response to a federal lawsuit, court docket data and video of the interrogation.
All through their prolonged questioning of Perez, officers used a wide range of ways aimed toward goading him into confessing. They introduced his canine into the interrogation room, instructed him the canine had walked by means of blood and could be despatched away to be euthanized. They drove Perez to a dust lot and requested him to stroll round searching for his dad’s physique. They instructed him that his father’s physique was in a morgue.
“You murdered your dad,” one of many officers mentioned, in response to video of the interrogation. “Daddy’s useless due to you.”
The officers instructed Perez that he would have “closure” if he instructed them what occurred. Perez repeatedly instructed them that he didn’t know.
“Cease mendacity to your self,” officers instructed Perez.
Perez, who was distressed, visibly sleep-deprived and later testified that he had been denied treatment for melancholy and different psychological problems, sobbed throughout the interview. At one level he tore out his hair and ripped open his shirt. When officers stepped out of the room, he tied his shoestrings round his neck in an try to hold himself, data and video present.
On the 16-hour mark, Perez instructed police that he had gotten into an altercation along with his father and had stabbed him.
However a serious drawback with that confession quickly emerged: Perez’s father was alive and protected. He had left the home he shared along with his son and stayed in a single day at a good friend’s house close to Union Station, in response to court docket data. Later, he waited to catch a flight at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport to go to his daughter in Northern California. When police realized that Perez’s father was protected, they initially withheld the knowledge and put Perez on a psychiatric maintain.
“In my 40 years of suing the police I’ve by no means seen that stage of deliberate cruelty by the police,” mentioned Perez’s legal professional, Jerry L. Steering. “After what I noticed on the video of what they did to him, I now know that the police can get [anyone] to admit to killing Abe Lincoln.”
Fontana police have been initially suspicious of Perez after observing that his home was in disarray, as if a “battle” had taken place. Perez’s father’s telephone was left inside the home and police mentioned they discovered “seen bloodstains.” A police canine had picked up the scent of a corpse, court docket data present.
After the ordeal, Perez filed a federal lawsuit towards town of Fontana, which additionally named Officers David Janusz, Jeremy Hale, Ronald Koval, Robert Miller and Joanna Piña as defendants. The Fontana Police Division didn’t reply to The Occasions’ request for remark in regards to the $898,000 settlement, or the officers’ standing throughout the division.
U.S. District Decide Dolly Gee discovered that “an inexpensive juror may conclude that the detectives inflicted unconstitutional psychological torture on Perez,” in response to a court docket order final June.
“He testified that the officers prevented him from sleeping and disadvantaged him of his treatment,” Gee mentioned. “There isn’t any reliable authorities curiosity that might justify treating Perez on this method whereas he was in medical misery.”
