Federal Lawsuit Filed Against Waukegan Police Detectives For Abusing And Assaulting Teens

Giorgio Pérez and Jonathan Garcia

Photo courtesy of Lake County News-Sun

Parents of several teenagers filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Waukegan and two Waukegan police detectives for abusing and physical assaulting a 13-year-old boy.

By H. Nelson Goodson

December 13, 2013

Waukegan, Illinois - The Lake County News-Sun reported that the parents of Jonathan Garcia, 13, and Giorgio Pérez, 14, on Monday filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago against the City of Waukegan and two Waukegan police detectives. The parents claimed that their children endured abuse, were threaten with harm, emotional trauma, obscenities by detectives and the youngest was physically assaulted with a cellphone causing a fractured nose. The lawsuit says that on November 26, police went to Pérez's house after a nearby home had its window broken. The police entered Pérez home without a warrant and asked for the shoes that both Garcia and Pérez were wearing to see, if they matched the foot prints left on the snow leading to Pérez home.

They were taken into custody, while at the Waukegan police station, a detective grabbed Garcia's arm and choked him in order for him to spit out his gum after he refused to signs some documents. The detective engaged in obscenities and threaten to harm the teen, if he didn't confess and then grabbed Garcia's cellphone and smacked the teen's face with it, fracturing Garcia's nose and breaking the phone.

Pérez was taken to the Hulse Juvenile Detention Center in Vernon Hills where he was stripped searched. A detective told Pérez that a boy sharing his room was charged with sexually assaulting a teen, according to the lawsuit.

The detectives weren't identified, because information requested by an attorney representing the teens had not received the arrest records. The teens were not charged for any offense, according to the teen's attorney.