Gilbert v. City of Chicopee

Gilbert v. City of Chicopee

Opinion

 [*76]  THOMPSON, Circuit Judge.

PREFACE

After a near decade-long saga within the fragmented City of Chicopee Police Department, Plaintiff-Appellant Mark Gilbert, a Captain in the police department, sued a host of Defendants-Appellees, including the City of Chicopee, Police Chief William Jebb, Mayor Richard J. Kos, and fellow police officer John Pronovost, seeking redress under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and various state laws.¹ From what we can glean, Gilbert claims his First Amendment rights were violated after appellees improperly targeted him for "speaking out and participating in a government investigation." [**2]  In this appeal (which causes us to seriously ponder "who's policing the police?"), Gilbert seeks reversal of the district court's dismissal of his claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Finding no reason to reverse, we close the curtain on this workplace drama.

GETTING OUR FACTUAL BEARINGS

In sharing this tale, we construe the facts of the complaint in the light most favorable to Gilbert. Ocasio-Hernández v.  [*77]  Fortuño-Burset, 640 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2011) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6)). While doing so, we observe, as did the district court, that Gilbert's one-hundred-eighty-one paragraph complaint is particularly difficult to follow.² Because the district court already parsed as best it could the facts drawn from Gilbert's complaint and gave the narrative some coherence, we provide and adopt the district court's recitation of facts contained in its November 14, 2017 Memorandum and Order Regarding Defendants' Motions to Dismiss (and we thank the district court for its herculean effort).

Over at least the past decade, [Gilbert] has been a police officer for the City of Chicopee. Defendants Jebb and Pronovost were fellow officers during this time. In 2007, Defendant Pronovost fell into a depression after his wife died, and he began behaving strangely at work.³ At some [**3]  point, [Gilbert] complained about this behavior to [] Jebb, who was at the time Captain of his shift. Nothing was done in response to [Gilbert]'s complaint. Thereafter, on an unspecified date in December, [Gilbert] and Pronovost got into an argument about Pronovost's behavior. During the interchange, Pronovost allegedly pulled out his gun and pointed it at [Gilbert]. [Gilbert] verbally reported the incident to his commanding officer Thomas Charette.2

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