I'm in Chicago today. This is on the front cover of the Sun-Times.
Starchild, you'll like this one.
August 30, 2007
BY STEVE PATTERSON Staff Reporter / spatterson@...
It was Rocio Palacios who first noticed the woman who appeared to need help.
It was 8 a.m. when she and her husband, Erasmo, dropped their
6-year-old daughter off at school and had picked up their 22-year-old
daughter to go out for breakfast when they saw the woman waving her
arms at 53rd and Kedzie last November.
"I'm so lucky I was with my wife," Erasmo Palacios (seen with wife
Rocio) said of his arrest on prostitution charges.
Erasmo Palacios, 51, explains how he was arrested for soliciting a
prostitute with his wife and daughter in his car.
The couple laughed, realizing this wasn't a woman in distress after all.
But within seconds, Chicago Police swarmed the family car, hauling
Erasmo Palacios out in handcuffs. He was charged with solicitation of
a prostitute
His daughter, who had just run in to exchange her coffee for a hot
chocolate, screamed, while his wife cried in fear.
Eight hours later, Palacios, who has no criminal record, was released
from custody. And weeks later, charges against him were dropped.
Now, Erasmo Palacios is suing the city and the officers involved in
his arrest, saying they violated his civil rights during an incident
he described as both frightening and ridiculous.
"I'm so lucky I was with my wife -- imagine if I had to try to tell
her and she wasn't with me," he said, before laughing at the image.
"She'd never believe me. Never."
A Chicago Police report offers few details, saying only that it was
Erasmo Palacios who asked for sex, never mentioning his wife in the
car or his daughter nearby.
Attorneys Lonny Ben Ogus and Joe Cavanaugh also want to know what
happened to the family's 1983 Mercedes. It was impounded that November
day and, Palacios said, his wife and daughter were even threatened
with arrest as they tried to stop police from taking it, as they were
left stranded that morning.
The city wants more than $4,700 in towing and storage fees if he wants
the car back.
City officials declined to comment on the status of the family's car
and the Palacios case, while the undercover female officer involved in
the arrest couldn't be reached.