Justin Parsons v. City of Pontiac

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

File Name: 08a0220p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

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Plaintiff-Appellant, -

JUSTIN PARSONS,

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No. 07-2299

v.

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CITY OF PONTIAC, DETECTIVE SHERRY MCKINNEY, -

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and DETECTIVE MAURICE MARTIN, jointly and

Defendants-Appellees. -

severally and in their individual capacities,

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.

No. 04-74457—R. Steven Whalen, Magistrate Judge.

Argued: June 4, 2008

Decided and Filed: June 24, 2008

Before: MERRITT, CLAY, and GILMAN, Circuit Judges.

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COUNSEL

ARGUED: Joel B. Sklar, LAW OFFICE, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant. Eric S. Goldstein,

BERRY, JOHNSTON, SZTYKIEL, HUNT & McCANDLESS, Troy, Michigan, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF: Joel B. Sklar, Ben M. Gonek, LAW OFFICE, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant. Eric

S. Goldstein, BERRY, JOHNSTON, SZTYKIEL, HUNT & McCANDLESS, Troy, Michigan, for

Appellee.

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OPINION

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RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge. Justin Parsons was arrested for the nonfatal

shooting of Arthur Frantz, a firefighter with the Pontiac Fire Department. Parsons was a former

firefighter who was discharged as a probationary employee of the Fire Department a month and a

half before the shooting. Following his arrest, Parsons was detained for approximately two days

before he was released. No charges have ever been filed against him in regard to the shooting.

Parsons sued the City of Pontiac and a number of city police officers pursuant to 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 and Michigan state law. Specifically, Parsons alleges that his constitutional rights were

violated because he was arrested and detained without probable cause. The district court granted

summary judgment in favor of the defendants. For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE the

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judgment of the district court and REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual background

Sometime in the early morning hours of April 7, 2004, Frantz was shot twice in the chest at

Fire Station # 1 in Pontiac. At approximately 6:50 a.m., firefighter Michael Lemons arrived at the

station to start his shift. Lemons was the first person to discover that Frantz had been shot. Frantz

was conscious and asked Lemons to call for help. The police were called to the scene and Frantz

was transported to a local hospital. A preliminary investigation into the circumstances surrounding

the shooting was conducted by the responding officers, who “indicate[d] that subject knocked on

the northwest door and when the fireman opened it he was shot twice in the chest.”

Detectives Maurice Martin and Sherry McKinney were assigned to the investigation. The

detectives went to the hospital where Frantz had been transported, but he was in the operating room

when they arrived. According to a Supplemental Report prepared by Detective McKinney and dated

April 7, the two detectives introduced themselves to Frantz’s wife, but she was too preoccupied to

speak with them. The detectives left a business card with a chaplain and Frantz’s two sons so that

they could be contacted.

A number of firefighters were interviewed by Detectives Francine Finnegan and Jaclyn

Wilton. Among those interviewed were Lemons, who initially discovered Frantz, and Captain

Steven Fritz, who was the second firefighter on the scene. Lemons told the police that Frantz had

said “somebody had been beating on the back door, [I] opened it up, and he shot me.” Fritz also

explained that Frantz told the two firefighters “that someone was banging on the door, that he

opened the door, and that somebody shot him.” According to Fritz, he had asked Frantz if he knew

who the shooter was, and Frantz had said “No.”

Detectives Martin and McKinney later conducted an interview with Sara Ann Henig,

Parsons’s ex-girlfriend. At approximately 8:45 a.m. on April 7, Henig had called her friend Pamela

Jean Bissett and told Bissett that she suspected that Parsons had shot Frantz. Bissett convinced

Henig to call the police, and the two women went to the police station. McKinney’s Supplemental

Report contains the following description of the interview with Henig:

In December of 2003 Ms. Henig said that Parsons was hired by the City of Pontiac

to be a Firefighter. She said that he was very excited and pleased to have a full time

position in a city like Pontiac.

Ms. Henig said that it wasn’t long before he started complaining about the

department and that he hated the guys he worked with. She stated that he use[d] to

get mad and said, “Once I get my year . . . I have a list of guys I’m gonna punch out

when I get off probation.”

Ms. Henig told us that she knew that Justin harbored ill feelings towards the Pontiac

Fire Department and the guys that he worked with. She said that when she heard

about a Firefighter being shot on the news she automatically thought of Justin. Ms.

Henig recalled that Justin was really depressed and upset about being terminated

from the Fire Department. She stated that he called her and told her that he was on

the road to the state of Florida after he was fired just to clear his head.

Henig also told the detectives about a conversation that she had had with Parsons on March

19, 2004. In a written statement, Henig said that she and Parsons were discussing “how upset

No. 07-2299 Parsons v. City of Pontiac et al. Page 3

[Parsons] was about having lost his job at the fire [department].” During the conversation, Henig

explained, “the subject of [Parsons’s] suicide attempt came up.” The written statement continues:

I asked if he was going to try again[;] he said, “Yes, but I have a plan this time.”

I asked what he was planning on doing[;] he answered “It’s not something you need

to worry about but you’ll hear on the news when it happens.”

I said, “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?”

He replied, “Like I said, you don’t need to worry about it.”

McKinney’s Supplemental Report also contains aspects of this conversation, but makes no

mention of a previous suicide attempt or the correlation between Parsons’s “plan” and his suicidal

thoughts. The Supplemental Report does indicate, however, that Henig told the detectives that

Parsons “carried a gun on his body at all times and one in his truck for protection.”

According to Henig, the last time that she and Parsons communicated was online, via instant

messenger, when they discussed an upcoming motorcycle race. At approximately 10:25 a.m. on

April 7, Henig called and paged Parsons in the presence of the detectives. Parsons did not return

Henig’s call, at which point she left the police station. The interview with Henig appears to be the

first time that Parsons was implicated as a potential suspect in Frantz’s shooting.

Following the interview with Henig, a number of other firefighters were questioned about

Parsons. Lieutenant Harvey Holland, who was involved in Parsons’s discharge, told the police that

there were “numerous reasons for the termination.” Upon being terminated, Parsons shook

Holland’s hand and said, “I’m sorry, sir.” Marc Seay, the firefighters’ union president, told the

police that Parsons never spoke to him about the termination. Parsons’s behavior was in marked

contrast to another individual who was terminated around the same time, one who “came in

everyday to speak with the union and was active in trying to defend himself.” Seay said that the

second employee’s behavior was much more typical of a terminated employee. There was no

indication during these interviews that Frantz was involved in firing Parsons, although Frantz’s

subsequent deposition in this case verified that Frantz had an intermittent supervisory role over

Parsons during the latter’s employment.

Firefighter Christopher Gangnier said that he had seen Parsons about two weeks earlier, and

that Parsons was upset about being fired. According to Gangnier, Parsons mentioned a few people

by name, but the only one that Gangnier could specifically remember was Chris Haney. “[N]o direct

threats were made to these individuals,” but Parsons basically “was saying that they did not treat him

fairly.”

The final firefighter who was interviewed before Parsons was arrested was Paul Holmes.

According to his written statement, Holmes was awakened by a phone call from his wife at 8:30 a.m.

on April 7, informing him about the shooting. Holmes explained that “in [his] own speculation [he]

thought Justin Parsons a possible suspect due to the fact that [the shooting] happened [at] the back

door near the time where shifts would be changing [and] that he was privy to that information [and]

had recently been terminated by the department.” He called Parsons twice, once at approximately

8:30 a.m. and again at approximately 11:16 a.m. Parsons did not answer on either occasion, and

Holmes left him two messages.

While Holmes was being interviewed by the police, Parsons called back to Holmes’s cell

phone. Holmes asked Parsons if he had heard what had happened. Parsons said “No[,] what

happened[?]” According to Holmes’s written statement, he proceeded to tell Parsons that Frantz had

been shot and was at the hospital. Holmes then asked Parsons to meet him at a local restaurant for

No. 07-2299 Parsons v. City of Pontiac et al. Page 4

lunch. Parsons agreed, and Holmes “advised the detectives that [Parsons] would be headed to the

restaurant in approx[imately] 10 min[utes].”

Police officers were dispatched to the restaurant where Parsons and Holmes were scheduled

to meet. The officers located Parsons sitting in his car in the parking lot. Believing that Parsons was

armed, the officers approached his car cautiously, opened the car door, and pulled Parsons out of

the car and to the ground. According to one officer’s report of the incident, while being patted down

for weapons, “Parsons made the unsolicited statement that ‘Is this . . . about Art?’” Parsons was

handcuffed and transported by Detectives Martin and McKinney to the Pontiac police station, where

he received a Miranda warning at 12:45 p.m. After an in-person consultation with Art Weiss, a

family friend and attorney, Parsons declined to waive his Miranda rights and refused to speak with

the police. He was transported to the Oakland County Jail and ultimately booked on a charge of

attempted murder at 4:56 p.m.

Following Parsons’s arrest, the police continued their investigation. A search warrant was

executed at Parsons’s place of residence at approximately 5:00 p.m. that afternoon. (The report

indicates that the search took place on April 6, but that is clearly a mistake because the crime did

not happen until April 7.) The search uncovered four firearms, but apparently none of the guns was

ever linked to the shooting.

In addition to advising Parsons, Weiss reportedly told the police that they should speak with

Kiera Evans, Parsons’s then-girlfriend, about a possible alibi for Parsons. According to a

Supplemental Progress Report signed by Detective Martin and dated April 7, 2004, the police were

investigating a claim that Parsons and Evans were at the Auburn Hills Police Department early that

morning in order for Evans to submit to a breathalyzer test. Martin and McKinney went to the

Auburn Hills Police Department and spoke with Sergeant Groehn, who informed the detectives that

there was video of Parsons and Evans at the police station and a report indicating that Evans took

her breathalyzer test at around 5:01 a.m. on April 7. According to Groehn, Parsons and Evans had

left the station by 5:20 a.m. Groehn gave the detectives a copy of the surveillance video. Records

from the Auburn Hills Police Department indicate that the Pontiac detectives left around 5:25 p.m.

on April 7.

Martin and McKinney then went to interview Evans. According to Martin’s report, Evans

and Parsons spent much of the early morning hours of April 7 driving around in Parsons’s truck.

The couple made a number of stops, culminating in the trip to the Auburn Hills Police Department

for Evans’s breathalyzer test. Following the visit to the police department, Evans and Parsons

returned to Evans’s apartment and went to sleep. As set forth in Evans’s written statement, Parsons

left her apartment at around 12:20 p.m. (presumably to meet Holmes at the restaurant where he was

arrested).

The police also conducted interviews on April 7 with a female friend of Parsons, Valerie

McGee, and another ex-girlfriend of Parsons, Michelle Heide. McGee told the police that Parsons

had expressed frustration with the fire department. Heide said that Parsons told her that he had been

suspended from the fire department; she also thought that he had been out of town for the previous

three weeks.

Detective Robert Koteles interviewed Roger Blovet, a possible witness to the shooting, who

described a white male that he had seen running on a street near the fire station on April 7, 2004.

Blovet described the man as six feet tall, weighing 200 pounds, with semi-short black hair, and

wearing tan pants and a tan coat. According to the report of Blovet’s interview, he saw the man at

approximately 7:30 a.m., which was almost 40 minutes after Frantz was found shot.

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On the following day, April 8, Sergeant Detective P.J. Moore of the Michigan State Police

was informed that Frantz had been taken off of the ventilator and was able to speak. Moore was the

first law enforcement officer to speak with Frantz following the shooting, conducting an interview

with him at approximately 8:00 a.m. During the interview, Frantz told Moore that he did not know

who shot him. Frantz explained that, immediately prior to the shooting, “he was sitting in the

kitchen at the fire hall reading the paper when somebody knocked on the window near the sink.”

He believed that the person knocking at the window was a firefighter, explaining to Moore that

firefighters arriving early for shifts often knocked on the window to get attention. Frantz unlocked

the door and started to push it open. The shooter pulled the door open as Frantz pushed it.

Frantz remembered being shot only once. According to Frantz, the shooter was wearing a

gray hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled down to obscure his face. Frantz, who is 5’6”,

described the shooter as taller than him, perhaps as tall as 6’0”. He further described the shooter as

being of medium build, weighing approximately 160-170 pounds, “not real dark skinned,” and “not

old.” Frantz said that he had no idea who would have shot him, but he did not think it was Parsons

because Parsons was not as tall as the shooter.

At approximately 8:36 a.m. on April 8, Sergeant Hernanai Cristobal of the Pontiac Police

Department arrived at the hospital to interview Frantz. (His report states that the interview took

place on April 9, but also that Frantz was shot on April 8, indicating that the dates are all off by one

day.) Frantz provided Cristobal with essentially the same information that he had given to Detective

Moore. With respect to the possibility that Parsons was the shooter, Frantz said: “I don’t think it

was Parsons[;] why would he want to shoot me?” Frantz also reiterated that it was usually firemen

who knocked on the window if they arrived for work early and did not have a key to the door. He

said that the shooting took place about 30 to 45 minutes after a fire engine had returned from a run,

and that a firefighter named Chapman had talked to him in the kitchen before going to bed.

The timing of these interviews by Moore and Cristobal is important because they were the

first direct interactions with Frantz. As such, they marked the first times that the police were given

a description of the shooter from the victim. These interviews with Frantz on April 8 were also the

first time that the police heard that the shooter had knocked on the kitchen window, a practice

known to firefighters but not to the general public. This is in contrast to the earlier reports by

Lemons and Fritz, the two firefighters who first discovered Frantz, both of whom told the police that

Frantz had said to them that the shooter had banged on the door. Despite the police not being

informed of the shooter’s description and the window-knocking until the morning of April 8,

McKinney’s Supplement Report dated April 7 contains both of these facts in the first paragraph.

On April 8 and 9, the police continued to interview various individuals. A number of other

firefighters, specifically those who were working at the time that Frantz was shot, gave the police

various opinions about Parsons and his job performance. The police also visited or spoke with

Evans at least two more times, apparently trying to arrange a polygraph examination that Evans had

offered to take.

At 11:50 a.m. on April 9, 2004, Detective McKinney completed an “Advice on Release from

Custody” form for Parsons. The form indicated that Parsons was being released “pending further

investigation for attempt[ed] murder charge.” Parsons was then taken in handcuffs to a nearby

psychiatric facility for evaluation. He was evaluated and released from the facility at 3:30 p.m. that

afternoon. The Oakland County Sheriff’s Department was responsible for taking Parsons to the

psychiatric facility. At the hearing on the motion for summary judgment, Parsons acknowledged

that none of the defendants were involved in his transfer. Accordingly, for the purposes of Parsons’s

claims in the present lawsuit, he was released from custody at 11:50 a.m. on April 9, a little less than

48 hours after he his initial arrest. He was never charged with the shooting of Frantz

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B. Procedural background

Parsons filed suit against Detective McKinney, the City of Pontiac, and unnamed Pontiac

police officers in November of 2004. He alleged violations of his Fourth and Fourteenth

Amendment rights, as well as violations of Michigan state law that prohibit false arrest and false

imprisonment. The parties consented to having the case decided by a magistrate judge.

In April of 2006, the defendants filed a consolidated motion for summary judgment and to

dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Parsons responded to the

motion and also moved for leave to file an amended complaint. His motion for leave to file an

amended complaint was granted, resulting in Detective Martin being added as a named defendant.

The district court then permitted the parties to file supplemental briefing related to the defendants’

consolidated motion for summary judgment and to dismiss.

A hearing on the defendants’ motion was held in August of 2007, with the district court

granting summary judgment to the defendants the following month. The court concluded that the

individual officers were entitled to qualified immunity, that there was no municipal liability

attributable to the City of Pontiac, and that the state-law claims failed as a matter of law. According

to the court, the individual officers had probable cause to arrest Parsons for the attempted murder

of Frantz, so that all of Parsons’s claims failed. Parsons timely appealed the district court’s decision

only with respect to the individual defendants.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of review

We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment. Int’l Union v. Cummins,

434 F.3d 478, 483 (6th Cir. 2006). Summary judgment is proper where no genuine issue of material

fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c).

In considering a motion for summary judgment, the district court must construe all reasonable

inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475

U.S. 574, 587 (1986). The central issue is “whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement

to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter

of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52 (1986).

B. Parsons’s claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Section 1983 provides a cause of action to those deprived of a constitutional right by law

enforcement officers acting under the color of state law. Gardenhire v. Schubert, 205 F.3d 303, 310

(6th Cir. 2000). A law enforcement officer’s key defense to a § 1983 action is encapsulated in the

concept of qualified immunity. Analysis of the qualified-immunity defense generally proceeds

under the two-step, sequential inquiry articulated by the Supreme Court in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S.

194, 201 (2001). The threshold question we must address is whether, “in the light most favorable

to the party asserting the injury, . . . the facts alleged show the officer’s conduct violated a

constitutional right[.]” Id.; see also Charvat v. E. Oh. Reg’l Wastewater Auth., 246 F.3d 607, 616

(6th Cir. 2001) (“First, the court must ask whether the plaintiff in the civil action has demonstrated

the violation of a constitutionally protected right.”). Evaluating the defense of qualified immunity

on a motion for summary judgment requires that we “adopt[] . . . the plaintiff’s version of the facts.”

Scott v. Harris, 127 S. Ct. 1769, 1775 (2007). “If no constitutional right would have been violated

were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified

immunity.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201.

“On the other hand, if a violation could be made out on a favorable view of the parties’

submissions, the next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established.” Id.; see

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Charvat, 246 F.3d at 616 (explaining that the court must determine “whether the right is so ‘clearly

established’ that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right”)

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “This inquiry . . . must be undertaken in light of the

specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition . . . .” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201. A

third consideration occasionally examined by this court to “increase the clarity” of the analysis is

“whether the plaintiff offered sufficient evidence to indicate that what the official allegedly did was

objectively unreasonable in light of the clearly established constitutional rights.” Estate of Carter

v. City of Detroit, 408 F.3d 305, 311 n.2 (6th Cir. 2005) (citations omitted).

1. False arrest

Parsons’s first § 1983 claim is that the police wrongfully arrested him for the shooting of

Frantz. “In order for a wrongful arrest claim to succeed under § 1983, a plaintiff must prove that

the police lacked probable cause.” Fridley v. Horrighs, 291 F.3d 867, 872 (6th Cir. 2002). “A

police officer has probable cause only when he discovers reasonably reliable information that the

suspect has committed a crime.” Gardenhire, 205 F.3d at 318 (emphasis added). Furthermore, “in

obtaining such reliable information, an officer cannot look only at the evidence of guilt while

ignoring all exculpatory evidence. Rather, the officer must consider the totality of the

circumstances, recognizing both the inculpatory and exculpatory evidence, before determining if he

has probable cause to make an arrest.” Id. This court stated in Gardenhire that a bare allegation of

criminal wrongdoing, although possibly justifying a brief investigatory detention, was insufficient

by itself to establish probable cause that the suspect had committed a crime. Id. at 317. Police

officers may not “make hasty, unsubstantiated arrests with impunity,” nor “simply turn a blind eye

toward potentially exculpatory evidence known to them in an effort to pin a crime on someone.”

Ahlers v. Schebil, 188 F.3d 365, 371-72 (6th Cir. 1999).

As this court has previously explained, a determination of whether probable cause existed

requires us to examine the totality of the circumstances, and we may “consider only the information

possessed by the arresting officer at the time of the arrest.” Harris v. Bornhorst, 513 F.3d 503, 511

(6th Cir. 2008). “A finding of probable cause does not require evidence that is completely

convincing or even evidence that would be admissible at trial; all that is required is that the evidence

be sufficient to lead a reasonable officer to conclude that the arrestee has committed or is

committing a crime.” Id.

“In general, the existence of probable cause in a § 1983 action presents a jury question,

unless there is only one reasonable determination possible.” Fridley, 291 F.3d at 872; see also

Gardenhire, 205 F.3d at 315 (explaining that the court “must determine whether a jury could

conclude that a reasonable officer could have believed that [the arrested individual] had probably

committed or [was] committing a crime”). But under § 1983, “an arresting agent is entitled to

qualified immunity if he or she could reasonably (even if erroneously) have believed that the arrest

was lawful, in light of clearly established law and the information possessed at the time by the

arresting agent.” Harris, 513 F.3d at 511 (citing Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227 (1991)).

The first question before us, then, is whether Detectives Martin and McKinney had probable

cause to arrest Parsons. This determination must be made based on the totality of the information

that was known to the detectives at the time of the arrest. In determining that no reasonable juror

could find that they lacked probable cause to arrest Parsons, the district court described the facts

known to the detectives in two different ways. First, the district court said:

At the time Defendant McKinney made the decision to arrest the Plaintiff, she had

the following information: Sara Henig, Plaintiff’s former girlfriend, called to say that

when she heard about the Frantz shooting on the news, she immediately thought of

Plaintiff; that Plaintiff worked at the Pontiac Fire Department, and said that he hated

No. 07-2299 Parsons v. City of Pontiac et al. Page 8

the people who worked there; that Plaintiff had a “list of guys” he was going to harm

(i.e., “punch out”) when his probationary period ended; that Plaintiff had been fired,

and was despondent; that Plaintiff expressed suicidal feelings; that Plaintiff told

Henig when he did something, it would be big, and she would “hear about it on the

news”; that Plaintiff carried a gun with him. McKinney also knew that Frantz had

opened the door to his assailant after hearing a knock at the window, which Frantz

said was the typical fireman’s way of getting the attention of the persons inside.

Prior to the arrest, the police also talked to Plaintiff’s former co-worker Holmes, who

said that Plaintiff was “the first person” to come to his mind when he learned of the

shooting.

The district court later described the evidence known to the detectives as follows:

McKinney knew that Plaintiff worked for and had been fired by the victim, that he

was familiar with the fireman’s protocol for gaining entry, that he harbored

resentment and therefore had motive to shoot the victim, that he had made threats,

that he carried a gun, and that he said Henig would hear about his plan on the news.

The descriptions above are strikingly similar to McKinney’s deposition testimony (taken in June of

2006) regarding the information that she recalled knowing prior to the arrest of Parsons. McKinney

said that she had

[i]nformation that he was disgruntled, that he had just recently been fired, that he had

a weapon. Legally or not, I wasn’t sure at that time. That he had made some

statements to Ms. Henig that when he did something, it would be big and it would

be on the news. The knock at the window. The familiarity of that led me to believe

that it was someone who knew how firemen maneuvered. The boldness of someone

knocking, getting the attention and shooting someone right across the street from the

police department at a time where there would be officers coming and leaving work,

firemen coming and leaving work, and the confusion of driving the streets in Pontiac.

You know, a lot of one-way streets. And people repeatedly saying, you know, he

was hinkey, and if anybody did it, it would be him.

The problem with McKinney’s deposition testimony and the district court’s recitation of the

facts purportedly known to the detectives at the time of the arrest is that the documentary evidence

flatly contradicts a number of the key facts. Specifically, and most importantly, the district court

relied heavily on the fact that the shooter knocked on the window to get Frantz’s attention, a

technique that was commonly used by firefighters but not by the general public. The first indication

that Frantz responded to a knock on the window, however, came from Frantz himself during his

interviews with the police on the morning of April 8, 2004. Prior to speaking directly with Frantz,

the only indication of how the shooter got Frantz’s attention came from firefighters Lemons and

Fritz, who both reported to the police that Frantz had told them that he had heard someone banging

on the door, a typical form of communication that would not lead to the conclusion that the shooter

was familiar with firefighter protocol.

As noted in the discussion of the facts above, McKinney’s report dated April 7, 2004 details

the knocking on the window and Frantz’s physical description of the shooter. But the April 7 date

on this report must be either a mistake or a deliberate back-date, given that the police were unable

to speak with Frantz until April 8, when they first obtained his description of the shooter and the

events that led to the shooting. In fact, a news story on the website Click On Detroit, originally

posted at 3:38 p.m. on April 7 (three hours after Parsons was arrested), reported that “[i]nvestigators

believe that the shooting victim . . . answered a knock at the firehouse’s side door Wednesday

morning.”

No. 07-2299 Parsons v. City of Pontiac et al. Page 9

Another key piece of evidence relied upon by the district court that is not supported by the

record is the context in which Parsons told Henig that he had a plan that she would hear about on

the news. The conversation between Parsons and Henig, which took place on March 19, 2004 (over

two weeks before the shooting), centered around Parsons’s suicidal thoughts related to his discharge

from the Pontiac Fire Department. Henig’s handwritten statement specifically links Parsons’s

declaration that he had “a plan” in mind to the possibility of a future suicide attempt on his part.

McKinney’s incorrectly dated report from April 7 states that Parsons’s comment about having a plan

came in response to Henig asking him “what he planned to do with his life.” There is nothing in

either description of the conversation that evinces a homicidal, rather than suicidal, intention.

Parsons did say that he had a list of firefighters he planned to “punch out” following his probationary

period, but there is a vast difference between “punching someone out” and attempted murder.

Finally, although it is unclear exactly when the police learned that Parsons had been under

some degree of supervision by Frantz during his employment with the Pontiac Fire Department,

there is no evidence to suggest that at the time of Parsons’s arrest the detectives had information

indicating that Parsons “had been fired by” Frantz as described in the district court’s opinion. In

fact, Frantz’s name does not appear in any of the disciplinary documents related to Parsons’s

employment. Lieutenant Harvey Holland, who was interviewed on April 7, told the police that he

had been involved in Parsons’s discharge, but gave no indication that Frantz was involved as well.

Removing the above facts from the information known to the detectives at the time that

Parsons was arrested casts considerable doubt on the probable cause associated with the arrest.

What remains is the following: (1) information from Parsons’s ex-girlfriend that (a) she thought it

might be Parsons, (b) Parsons had recently been fired from the fire department and was upset, (c)

Parsons had attempted suicide in the past, and that he had a plan to try again that she would hear

about “on the news,” (d) Parsons had a list of guys at the fire department that he wanted to “punch

out” after his probationary period ended, and (e) Parsons generally carried a gun, (2) a fellow

firefighter, Paul Holmes, also initially thought of Parsons as a suspect when he first heard the news

that Frantz was shot, and (3) Parsons had made no effort to contest his termination from the Pontiac

Fire Department, a reaction that the union president found surprising. But there were no eyewitness

reports of the shooting, no forensic evidence linking Parsons to the crime, and the police, at that

time, had heard only that Frantz was responding to someone banging on the back door of the fire

station.

We ultimately conclude that this evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to

Parsons, is not susceptible to only one reasonable determination—that the detectives had probable

cause to arrest Parsons. The detectives certainly had information that was sufficient to support their

questioning of Parsons as a potential suspect. But as this court has made clear, probable cause for

an arrest requires “reasonably reliable information that the suspect has committed a crime.”

Gardenhire, 205 F.3d at 318. A reasonable jury could find that the information known to the

detectives when they arrested Parsons falls short of this probable-cause standard.

Because the district court erred in determining, as a matter of law, that the detectives had

probable cause to arrest Parsons, the next step is to determine whether the constitutional right that

was violated by the detectives was clearly established, and whether the detectives’ “actions were

objectively unreasonable in light of that right.” Radvansky v. City of Olmsted Falls, 395 F.3d 291,

310 (6th Cir. 2005) (applying the qualified-immunity analysis to the arrest of a tenant who had been

accused by his landlord of criminal trespass). The detectives argue that Smoak v. Hall, 460 F.3d 768

(6th Cir. 2006), illustrates “how an arrest without probable cause giving rise to a constitutional

violation does not in and of itself lead to civil liability.” According to their argument, Smoak held

that there is no constitutional violation where officers are reasonably mistaken in their understanding

of the relevant facts.

No. 07-2299 Parsons v. City of Pontiac et al. Page 10

Smoak, however, is easily distinguishable from the present case. In Smoak, this court held

that the plaintiffs’ brief detention on the interstate highway as suspects in a robbery became an arrest

without probable cause because of the intrusiveness of the seizure. 460 F.3d at 782. The officers

were entitled to qualified immunity, however, because the court concluded that “[a]lthough the use

of guns and handcuffs in the present case was unreasonably intrusive, prior decisions had not made

this clear.” Id. In other words, the plaintiffs in Smoak failed to demonstrate that the constitutional

right that had been violated was clearly established.

In the present case, however, there is no dispute that Parsons was arrested at the time the

police took him into custody at the restaurant and that an arrest without probable cause is

unconstitutional. See Radvansky, 395 F.3d at 310 (“It is beyond doubt that in 2001 the law was

clearly established that, absent probable cause to believe that an offense had been committed, was

being committed, or was about to be committed, officers may not arrest an individual.”) (internal

quotation marks omitted). The law was therefore clearly established that arrests without probable

cause violated the Constitution at the time of Parsons’s arrest in 2004.

To be entitled to qualified immunity, Detectives Martin and McKinney bear the burden of

showing that their arrest of Parsons was objectively reasonable. See id. But viewing the evidence

in the light most favorable to Parsons, a jury could find that their actions were not objectively

reasonable. The problem is not that they ignored exculpatory evidence in arresting a suspect as in

Gardenhire, 205 F.3d at 318 (explaining that in obtaining the reasonably reliable information to

satisfy probable cause, “an officer cannot look only at the evidence of guilt while ignoring all

exculpatory evidence”), but that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether they possessed

sufficient inculpatory evidence to reasonably believe that Parsons shot Frantz. We therefore

conclude that the decision of the district court with regard to qualified immunity for Martin and

McKinney must be reversed.

2. False imprisonment

The district court also determined that the detectives were entitled to qualified immunity with

respect to Parsons’s § 1983 claim arising from his two-day detention. Relying on County of

Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44 (1991), the court concluded that Parsons had failed to rebut

the presumption of reasonableness that attaches to a detention that lasts less than 48 hours where the

initial arrest is supported by probable cause. But based on our determination that a genuine issue

of material fact exists as to whether Parsons’s initial arrest was supported by probable cause, the

district court’s decision must also be reversed with respect to Parsons’s subsequent detention. The

parties have cited no cases from this court, or any other, that deny qualified immunity because of

a lack of probable cause for an arrest but grant qualified immunity for the subsequent detention,

regardless of the duration of said detention.

C. State-law claims

The district court dismissed Parsons’s state-law claims for false arrest and false

imprisonment because those claims necessarily require a finding that the arresting officers lacked

probable cause. Because the court found that the officers had probable cause to arrest Parsons, his

state-law claims were dismissed. In light of our decision to reverse the district court’s

qualified-immunity finding, however, the dismissal of Parsons’s state-law claims must also be

reexamined.

The detectives now argue that even if there was no probable cause to arrest Parsons, they are

still entitled to immunity from his state-law claims under Michigan’s governmental-immunity

statute. This argument, however, is raised for the first time on appeal, and we therefore decline to

consider it. See Berryman v. Rieger, 150 F.3d 561, 568 (6th Cir. 1998) (“It is a well-established rule

that this Court will not consider claims that are presented for the first time on appeal nor arguments

No. 07-2299 Parsons v. City of Pontiac et al. Page 11

that are not properly raised below.”). We therefore reinstate Parsons’s state-law claims for further

consideration by the district court.

III. CONCLUSION

For all of the reasons set forth above, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and

REMAND the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.