Officers threatened to kill the dog of Thomas Perez Jr as they pressured him to falsely confess to killing his father, who was alive

A California city has agreed to pay $900,000 to a man who was subjected to a 17-hour police interrogation in which officers pressured him to falsely confess to murdering his father, who was alive.

During the 2018 interrogation of Thomas Perez Jr by police in Fontana, a city east of Los Angeles, officers suggested they would have Perez’s dog euthanized as a result of his actions, according to a complaint and footage of the encounter. A judge said the questioning appeared to be “unconstitutional psychological torture”, and the city agreed to settle Perez’s lawsuit for $898,000, his lawyer announced this week.

The extraordinary case of a coerced false confession has sparked widespread outrage, with footage showing Perez in extreme emotional and physical distress, including as officers brought his dog in and said the animal would need to be put down due to “depression” from witnessing a murder that had not actually occurred.

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      6 months ago

      The police in the UK lied to me when I was 18 after a group fight on a night out.

      Next thing I know we are up in Magistrates Court (max sentence 6 months in jail), they say nah fam this is too serious for us let’s send it up to Crown Court (no max sentence). In the end we end up with 300 hours of community service and a fine.

      I’ll never trust the police again. Like sure if there is a serial killer about I’m gonna tell em what I know. If I’m under suspicion they get no comment all day long. They ain’t here to help us.

      Fun side story. Which I preface by saying I’m a good boy now.

      Me and my brother worked a call center and a scam going where we would get orders diverted to stores and go collect them and sell them. Like MacBooks and high end cameras etc.

      Get fired without a word being said. Literally taken of the phone and walked out without a word.

      6+ months later my Nana calls as she is house sitting at my mums whilst she on holiday, saying the police are here for me.

      I speak on the phone and like yeah bro I don’t live there and I’m finna go to work right now, but I’ll hand myself into the station in a couple of days.

      I arrange a solicitor and tell my brother to do the same. He’s a bit of a neek and just goes in alone and tells them everything and has a panic attack in the interview room.

      But you see my brother has a couple mental issues on that he should have had an appropriate adult in the room so anything he said was inadmissible in court.

      I rock up and hand myself in. Get shoved in a cell for 10 hours waiting for my solicitor. He comes asked how I did the scam and was like damn bro that’s sick. Anyway he’s like just say no comment to an everything. So I did and honestly it’s harder than it seems to do that when you like being polite.

      So they knew for a fact we did this thing but had to go NFA (No further action) as they couldn’t prove it.

      More fun. My brother is now a police officer himself which is wild.