By Rachel Clarke and Shimon Prokupecz | CNN
Fontana — Tom Perez called the local police non-emergency line to report his elderly father missing. Thirty-six hours later, Perez was on a psychiatric hold in a hospital, having been pressured into confessing he killed his dad and trying to take his own life.
His father was alive and there had been no murder.
No one told Perez. Instead, police continued investigating him, looking for a victim who did not exist.
That was six years ago, in August 2018. His hometown of Fontana, California, paid $900,000 to settle his claims against the police, but Perez says no one from the city has ever apologized. Nor is there any indication there was an internal investigation into why detective after detective, supervisor after supervisor, allowed the questioning of Perez to continue for hour after hour.
Since then, many of the police officers involved have been promoted. And Perez feels there has still been no explanation for why he was treated so badly.
RELATED: California city officials defend police in 2018 interrogation of man characterized as ‘psychological torture’
CNN became aware of this story when the settlement was publicized. We obtained some interrogation videos and spent weeks poring through records and interviews, many of which have not been made public because of a protective order, to try to ascertain what led to what one expert in policing called “one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen.”
Perez and the city of Fontana reached their settlement this spring after he filed a civil suit accusing the police of false imprisonment and due process violations, among other offenses. The suburban city, about an hour’s drive east of Los Angeles, admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement and “vigorously denies” that any state or federal laws were broken.
Both Tom Perez and his father — who has the same name and is nicknamed “Papa Tom” — sat for exclusive interviews with CNN. The police officers who interrogated the younger man for 17 hours have not responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
Police responded to the Perez home and soon became suspicious
An evidence photo shows red marks on a door appearing to be the same as a door in the Perez house that was previously unmarked.(Obtained by CNN via CNN Newsource)
The Perez father and son live together in a three-bedroom, cream-colored house with a tile roof in a cul-de-sac of homes built around a golf course. Back in 2018, they were planning to sell the property and were packing up their things and completing some improvements. A contractor, the younger Perez was doing most of the work himself.
The two men had ended up sharing a house after Perez split from his wife and his father, also separated, found he wasn’t suited to the rules of a senior citizen community. They muddled along together, getting on each other’s nerves, but never for too long. Both held real estate licenses, they said, though they lived largely separate lives, with their own interests and friends. But they both adored their dog — …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
