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.
There was a Breaking Bad ( or maybe Better Call Saul?) Episode where a character was hauled in for questioning and the only reply he would give was “Lawyer.” That’s exactly what someone should do in that situation.
No. Be explicit. “I invoke my right to remain silent, and I invoke my right to an attorney.” The Supreme Court has held that you must “unambiguously request counsel”. If you say “give me a lawyer, dog”, the state of Louisiana will decline to give you a “lawyer dog”.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/10/suspect-asks-for-a-lawyer-dawg-judge-says-he-asked-for-a-lawyer-dog.html
Don’t be rude or annoying, but yeah. Pretty much.
Probably won’t get into trouble if you tell a cop at a traffic stop that you’re going home from work, unless you’re drunk off your socks, but generally it’s best to politely not answer.
You need to actively and clearly say you are invoking your fifth amendment privileges to not answer questions and that you want a lawyer.
Do not use slang, there are dirty judges out there that will rule against you if you say “I want my lawyer dog”
Me know what it means, but the legal system will deliberately trip you, that dog thing is an actual example
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.
“Protect and Serve” is accurate, but it’s not towards us. People need to realize that.
Every day is “Shut the Fuck Up Friday.”
Sauce
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.)