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.
Remember- never talk to cops.
They are not your friends. They are not there to help, protect or otherwise serve you.
They are there solely to build a case against you, and if they can, they will charge you with anything they find.
They will lie about the law- if they even know what it actually says- lie about what they know. They will twist you up and get you to say anything.
Demand a lawyer and shut the fuck up. Do not consent to a search, do not let them inside. Do not fall for the “if you’re innocent”. demand a lawyer and shut the fuck up. You have no obligation to talk to them. you have no obligation to answer their questions.
Every day is “Shut the Fuck Up Friday.”
I absolutely agree. And I absolutely hate the “protect and serve” shit on militarized police forces where their success metric is number of tickets, arrests, and convictions. The system is working as intended, the police exist to protect and serve capital interests.
The biggest thing to remember is that cops are allowed to lie to you! Yes, they are allowed to lie to you and trick you into confessing.
Lying about witnesses accusing you is bad enough. But they’re well known to blatantly lie about things like what the law actually is, or sentencing or how good a deal you can get for confessing.
The worst part is the final deal is up to the judge, usually following the recommendations of the prosecution- not cops.
Most of their games are curtailed significantly even having an incredibly shitty public defender. (Don’t mean to rag on them. They’re fighting the good fight. But they’re over worked and spread too thin. A public defender is never going to compare to a private attorney- never mind an entire legal team. Just saying even the absolute worst legal aid you can think of is going to stop most of it.)
I like how each subsequent time the dollar amount is mentioned, you learn that the previous number had been rounded up.
Man awarded $1m is glad to receive $900,000. That $898,000 will make him feel better but is $897,600 really adequate compensation? However, it’s kind of unfair that the tax payers end up footing this $897,550 bill.
It fits right in with this bad cop story.
And as always always always happens in cases like this, there’s no indication that the officers involved were disciplined in any way.
Fun fact: The Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that cops do have the right to lie to you.
I hope these disgusting cops get fired and prosecuted for what they did to this poor guy (and his dog). But that’s not how it seems to works. These scumbag will probably just get put on paid administrative leave until another police department recruits them. And then they will become a nightmare for the residents of a different location.
You should see what hospitals do.
Read the books Psychiatric Slavery and Cruel Compassion by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz.
ACAB every damn day and yet again sadly the bad cops get no punishment and we literally pay for their ACAB behavior.
Easy cash right here, where do I apply?
I could really use an extra million for 17 hour job of me acting abused and tortured (not that this guy was acting). It’s my dream job
1 million for 17 hrs? unless they were proping him anally for those 17 hrs non-stop, I think it was too much. A lot of false-prison sentences get less than 1 million a year. They should also fire and fine the cops who caused this loss
They caused him to try to kill himself. $1m is low in my opinion. I just wish it came out of the cops retirement fund.
