I am sorry, different expert here as your previous expert has opted out. I am presuming from your statements above that your son in law is Stephen and was the one who was released without charges after his name was released as being involved in this criminal activity and posted in the media and my answer is based on that presumption.

If Stephen was arrested without probable cause and his name was released by the police to the media as being part of this gang and its activities, then he has grounds to file suit against the police department for not only False Arrest but Defamation/slander/libel for making these statements and releasing them to the media when they were known to be false or made with reckless disregard of the truth on an arrest without any probable cause.

This type of case will require his local attorney to obtain copies of the police reports to determine what reasonable basis the police had to believe there was probable cause for the arrest and to determine what the specific courses of action should be in the suit against the department aside from getting a retraction issued to the media.

However, one thing you need to be aware with in these types of cases is that if there was a reasonable basis for the police to have probable cause for the arrest, the mere dismissal or refusal to prosecute Stephen is not sufficient to succeed in winning a case of slander/defamation/libel and false arrest and this is the reason the police reports will need to be reviewed.

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