Plaintiff:
Timothy Rhoads
Incident date:
04/22/2016
Location:
6406 N. Clark St.
Allegations:
Rhoads was celebrating his birthday at a bar with friends when he was assaulted by unidentified individuals and employees of the bar. Officers arrived at the scene, but none of them filed an incident report. Rhoads left the bar and unsuccessfully sought help from several other officers nearby. About an hour later, Rhoads approached Officer Woods at the police station and asked for help filing a complaint. Woods threatened Rhoads and called him a "bitch," so he left the station. Rhoads was finally able to file a report around 5:30 a.m., when an officer arrived at his apartment. Two months later, Rhoads called Officer Gonzales to check the complaint's progress. Gonzales told Rhoads the case had been closed because he was kicked out of the bar and had been "flailing around like a faggot." Gonzales began threatening Rhoads over the phone, saying he was going to arrest Rhoads for threatening him and that he better be at home when Gonzales got there. Gonzales arrived at Rhoads' home with five other officers and arrested him, inappropriately grabbing Rhoads' rear end and pressing up against him in the police car. After leaving him in the car without any air conditioning, Gonzales took him to the police station and continued to inappropriately touch him as he escorted him to a cell. Gonzales filed a report that said Rhoads had harassed him over the phone and threatened to punch him in the nose. After the incident, Rhoads had to reduce his work hours. His income plummeted and eventually he lost his apartment.