Plaintiff:
Michael Pearce
Incident date:
08/07/2007
Location:
5748 W. 64th St.
Allegations:
Pearce was detained and taken into police custody while he was in the Clearing neighborhood. He was charged with reckless conduct even though officers failed to witness misconduct. While at the station, officers threatened him with lockup if he did not identify a marijuana source. After multiple threats, Pearce identified an individual known as “Hitman”. Pearce had not purchased any drugs from “Hitman” in four months and identified a gang way between two houses in the Ashburn neighborhood as the last place of purchase. An officer submitted a complaint for search warrant naming Rudy Cantu (a.k.a. “Hitman”). In the search warrant, the officer falsely stated that a cooperative individual had approached them with the information after having bought drugs from “Hitman” approximately 30 times over the past three months at a residence on 84th Place. The officer did not inform the State's Attorney's Office that Pearce, the cooperative individual, was detained. The next day, the officer sent a second complaint for search warrant. This warrant claimed that Cantu lived in a residence on 78th Place. The officer made false claims that Pearce had purchased drugs from Cantu at this location more than 30 times in the last three months. Pearce was taken to a lock-up and presented before a judge in order to get the warrant approved. Officers told Pearce that if he wanted to get out, he needed to tell the judge that everything on the warrant was true. He was never given the exact details of the warrant's content. The judge approved the warrant and Pearce was taken back to lockup. Officers proceeded to execute a search warrant of the residence on 78th Place. Livingstone, 56, and her mother, Manny, 83, had lived at this location for over 30 years. Without showing a warrant, the officers detained both women inside the house for two hours even though Livingstone told the officers that her son was a Chicago Police detective. She proceeded to call her son, who later arrived at the scene. The search was called off.