Lock-upOn dutyMinorThreats/intimidationDestroy/conceal/fabricate evidenceForced confessionFalse arrest or reportOther charges filed
Plaintiff:
Vincent Thames
Incident date:
03/09/1995
Allegations:
Several months after a woman was found dead in a dumpster in 1994, the officers approached an 18-year-old and his friend to inquire about the murder. The officers arrested this man and coerced him into making false statements. Two days later, the officers arrested Thames, who was 17 at the time, and took him to the police station. Detectives Paladino and Coughlin threatened Thames and told him he would serve a natural life sentence, or spend his entire life in jail. After the detectives interrogated him for 17 hours, Thames agreed to go along with their statements and signed a false handwritten statement. What followed was a series of falsified confessions that were discarded and rewritten by the officers, which Thames signed in hopes that he would be released. Thames was charged with the woman's rape and murder. Meanwhile, other individuals were being interrogated and coerced to implicate themselves in the murder. Because the men agreed to implicate themselves and Thames in the murder, all of them were charged with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault. The teens became known as the "Englewood Four." The officers recited the details of the woman's murder to Thames and the other men so their confessions would be correct. However, the men's statements were inconsistent with the ones the officers had created. More than three years after the murder, Thames pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Thames spent 16 and a half years in prison for a crime that he didn't commit.