John Pfaff: Son calls in to say his dad is missing. Same day, police mentally torture him into confessing to his dad’s murder—including by threatening to euthanize his dog. So much pressure that he attempts to die by suicide during a pause in the interrogation. The catch? THE DAD WAS STILL ALIVE!

Son calls in to say his dad is missing. Same day, police mentally torture him into confessing to his dad’s murder—including by threatening to euthanize his dog. So much pressure that he attempts to die by suicide during a pause in the interrogation. The catch? THE DAD WAS STILL ALIVE!

To protect and to serve.... "'In my 40 years of suing the police I have never seen that level of deliberate cruelty,' says an attorney for Thomas Perez Jr."

Fontana pays nearly $900,000 for ‘psychological torture’ inflicted by police to get false confessionwww.pasadenastarnews.com Detectives grilled Thomas Perez Jr. for 17 hours, deprived him of medications and threatened to have his dog killed if he didn’t confess to killing his father, who was actually alive.

Didn’t even wait to see if the one key element of murder—someone being, you know, dead—was real. Just badgered a person until they cracked. At the level of acting out on suicidal ideation. And, let’s be clear: no cost-benefit analysis of policing includes these costs.

I suppose it would be too much to expect this PD to go back and re-examine all of the other confessions they have secured during the careers of these officers. Naturally, only this one was actually problematic in any way. Right?

The PD would not be the group to do it (and you wouldn’t want them to), it would be the district attorney’s office. Also, defense attorneys depending on context

Oh, I know. PD’s being self-correcting is a beautiful dream. District Attorney offices being self-correcting pretty much comes under the same heading unfortunately. Worst of all, based on past events, I expect that most DA offices would actively oppose any systematic review effort.

As always we are very fortunate to have caught these cops the one and only time they did this.

Agree. LAPD *Liability* payoffs are third largest item in LA’s budget: behind only General Services & LAPD - by far the largest item. We all pay not only for the Warrior Cop insurrection that kills over 1,000 Americans annually in extrajudicial murders, but for their immunity. x.com/lacontroller...

x.comx.com

LA Controller Mejia’s graph is stunning: I hope someone will post the image here. We pay for the police violence, for their immunity, and for the opportunity cost of squandering what the cop guild’s contractual extortion demands of servile electeds. Warrior Cops are Praetorian Guard with SWAT teams.

It is past time for the force to pay along with their union. Collecting union dues means you are liable for the actions of your members.

And we pay for it. The aristocrats!

"We couldn't be bothered to do basic detective work, so instead we tortured a guy and threatened to kill his dog."

^^ To be clear, that is satire

it's not satire if it's true :(

I didn't want people thinking that was an actual quote. AFAIK they did not say that - but my understanding is that they did it.

yeah, I got what you were saying. I was being ironic :)

👍

I feel like they enjoy this sort of thing.

I'm so ×§*∆ fed up with money settlements for these abuses (Minneapolis has paid out something like $32,000,000). Cops *do not care* about the money. It stops nothing, but rips off taxpayers. Yes, absolutely the victims need financial restitution. AND the cops need consequences that matter to them.

the cops involved should have all their assets seized and put towards the settlement

And obviously prohibited from any law enforcement job (or anything adjacent to it) ever again.

Pull it from the police union pensions. Incentivise them to control their own loose cannons

My thought all along has been that settlements should come from the Dept. pension funds. With a rock solid stipulation that taxpayers will not refill the funds lost due to settlements. THAT would get fellow officers to not tolerate their compatriots extreme and sometimes deadly misbehavior.

Instead those cops are still employed (well, one of them retired and is living on a sweet pension).

Individual malpractice insurance for cops would solve a couple problems: taxpayers are off the hook, and a neutral mostly objective party decides when to end an officer's career.

No accountability isn't working out well.

It's like the seventh worst thing they did, but it reads as if they didn't tell the guy which animal shelter they dropped his dog off at

I'm honestly shocked he got the dog back alive...

WTAF?

Utterly fucking inhumane. Those police shouldn't be allowed to have access to sharp objects, never mind still be police officers. Just completely outrageous.

This is what happens when you use deception as a weapon. That's something you do to an enemy, therefore you start seeing the public as the enemy. Every is a criminal. Everyone is a suspect. And in turn the public stops trusting you.

and he was the one to call them in the first place!!!

Threatening to kill my dog would completely break me as well. This is absolutely horrendous.

Not just threaten, they brought the dog in to him when he was already breaking down and let him lie down with it while letting him know they'd kill it.

Frankly, not enough money. I think the courts should have bankrupted that corrupt miserable town and its corrupt miserable police force.

Disgusting. If you ever are being questioned by a cop say, I am happy to answer your questions but I need my lawyer present. Don’t worry about not having a lawyer just make sure to say that. A lot

And they told him that his dad was definitively dead (that they found the body).

That money should come out of police retirement fund

Fucking awful.

$900,000 seems cheap considering taxes & his lawyers fees

Oh and more evidence that police dogs are just Clever Hans

Why do the cops look exactly like I expected from the headline?

Good lord

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