Thomas Perez being interrogated by detectives (KTTV/YouTube).
A police chief in California has taken to social media to defend detectives who forced a man on medication for stress, depression and high blood pressure to confess to his own father’s murder — which never actually happened — through the use of what a federal judge called “psychological torture.”
“Were we perfect in how we handled the situation? Nobody ever is,” wrote Fontana Police Chief Michael Dorsey in a Nov. 7 statement posted to the department’s X account. “In situations like these, it is acceptable and perfectly legal to use different tactics and techniques, such as ruses, to elicit information from people suspected of potential criminal activity. That was done in this case in order to gain resolution.”
The problem: detectives were looking to gain resolution for a homicide that didn’t exist.
Thomas Perez Jr. was interrogated for 17 hours by the Fontana Police Department over the disappearance of his 71-year-old father in 2018, according to a civil rights lawsuit that he settled earlier this year with the city and an interview with CNN. He reported him missing on Aug. 8 of that year and was questioned that evening and the following day.
Detectives David Janusz and Kyle Guthrie claimed in a 2023 deposition for the civil case filed by Perez against the City of Fontana that their lieutenant had told them “something to the fact that they believed Thomas — or Mr. Perez — had killed his father.” The detectives both admitted that they had “a feeling” that Perez murdered his father but couldn’t prove it.
The pair allegedly took Perez to a coffee shop and drove him around town for hours while “berating” him about his dad’s disappearance and looking for places where he might have dumped a body, his suit said. They also allegedly denied requests by Perez to let him take medication he is prescribed for his stress, depression, high blood pressure and asthma.
At one point, the detectives even claimed to have recovered his dad’s remains, saying, “He has a toe tag on him,” according to the suit. Interrogation footage also shows them saying, “You know you killed him. You did.” A third cop, Detective Robert Miller, was also said to have been involved.
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The City of Fontana wound up settling with Perez — paying him nearly $900,000 — after a federal judge in California’s Central District ruled in favor of letting his case move forward following a review of police footage from the interrogation.
“Perez’s mental state, among other factors, made him a vulnerable individual,” wrote Judge Dolly Gee, referring to the detectives’ interrogation tactics as “unconstitutional psychological torture” in her ruling.
“He was sleep deprived, mentally ill, and, significantly, undergoing symptoms of withdrawal from his psychiatric medications,” Gee said. “He was berated, worn down, and pressured into a false confession after 17 hours of questioning. (The officers) did this with full awareness of his compromised mental and physical state and need for his medications.”
In his X statement, Chief Dorsey explained that while the City of Fontana was ready to end its beef with Perez and put his case to rest after half a decade, he was not.
“Our police department recently settled a lawsuit that generated misleading, one-sided headlines, telling the story from the point-of-view of the plaintiff’s attorney,” Dorsey said.
“In the interest of transparency, accountability, fairness and maintaining community trust, I wanted the community to have the facts. … This was a missing person’s case where officers and detectives followed unfolding evidence that pointed toward possible foul play. Fortunately, the man was ultimately located, alive and well. In the settlement agreement, the judge on the case noted that a reasonable juror would agree that officers had sufficient evidence to suspect a crime had been committed.”
Dear Neighbor,
Our police department recently settled a lawsuit that generated misleading, one-sided headlines, telling the story from the point-of-view of the plaintiff’s attorney. In the interest of transparency, accountability, fairness and maintaining community trust, I… pic.twitter.com/jWaxS3Yusr
— Fontana PD (@FontanaPD) November 7, 2024
According to Dorsey, officers had reached out to Perez’s family members and talked to a neighbor in an effort to locate his father.
“The neighbor described the son as ‘mentally unstable’ and said he didn’t have patience with his father,” Dorsey alleged.
He said that the neighbor told police that somebody “other than the father” was seen driving his truck “erratically,” and it appeared there was something in the bed of the truck. A search warrant was obtained and conducted at Perez’s residence, according to Dorsey, with blood turning up on “the staircase, carpet near the stairs, a couch, in the garage, in a bathtub and on the floor of an upstairs bathroom, adjacent to the father’s bedroom.” A sheriff’s K-9 was even brought in and alerted cops to the presence of remains.
Detectives David Janusz and Kyle Guthrie (KTTV/YouTube).
While the detectives were driving around with Perez, Dorsey said they stopped at a golf course with a pond and he allegedly said to them, “Don’t bodies float?” This led to even more suspicions about Perez, per Dorsey.
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“We often encounter dynamic situations that require quick decisions based on where the evidence leads us,” the chief explained. “Sometimes initial evidence points toward criminal activity when there’s none. We constantly review our handling of situations and, when called for, adjust our policies or tactics as part of our ongoing effort to improve.”
Under California law, it’s legal for police to lie to suspects when trying to obtain information. Recent science-based studies by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, however, have led to more negative views toward deception and manipulation tactics, the San Bernardino Sun reports.
“Hindsight is always 20-20,” Dorsey said. “In the moment, we were urgently searching for a missing man and there was good reason to suspect some harm might have come to him. Sadly, situations like these can and often do end up as homicide investigations. We are so thankful this was not one of those. I can recall a local case in the past that had similar circumstances and the investigators were able to recover the murdered victim hidden by the same individual reporting the victim missing. We are sorry for what the son went through, and we are grateful to learn that he and his father have reunited.”
Authorities ended up finding the father at Los Angeles International Airport awaiting a plane to Oakland to visit his daughter.
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