Third Ex-Cop Sues After Being Detained at Dulles

A third former Dumfries police officer has filed suit against the department's chief and a captain. The suit alleges that the officer's constitutional rights were violated when he and three others were unlawfully detained at an airport after returning from a trip to Las Vegas.

Troy Parker, who had been a full-time Dumfries police officer for about eight years, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Alexandria this month against Dumfries Police Chief Calvin Johnson and Capt. Ronald Mackey. Parker is the third of four former Dumfries officers involved in the airport incident to file suit. Darryl Robinson, a former full-time Dumfries officer, and Colin Ruffner, a former auxiliary officer, filed their lawsuits in October. The three former officers claim in their lawsuits that the police chief and captain operated outside of their authority and jurisdiction during the incident.

The fourth man, James Metcalf, also a former auxiliary officer, has not taken any legal action.

Since Robinson's and Ruffner's lawsuits have been filed, the federal court has consolidated them.

"[Parker's] lawsuit is almost identical to the other two," said Jennifer Lee Parrish with the Fredericksburg law firm of Parrish, Houck and Snead. Parrish represents Johnson and Mackey.

"We do not believe the defendants at any time did anything improper or violated any constitutional rights of these three plaintiffs," Parrish said.

Attorney Michael Horwatt of Vienna, who represents the three plaintiffs, declined to comment on Parker's filing.

Each lawsuit seeks $750,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages from each man for false imprisonment in violation of the U.S. constitutional right to due process, as well as for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The total amount sought from Johnson and Mackey in the lawsuits is $3.3 million each, plus legal fees.

The lawsuits stem from an incident Feb. 17 at Washington Dulles International Airport when the four men returned from a trip to Las Vegas. According to the lawsuits, as the men got off the plane at the airport terminal, they were surrounded by officers and publicly apprehended even though they had committed no crime.

Robinson and Parker did not follow proper police administrative procedures in requesting leave before taking off for Las Vegas on Feb. 15, according to the lawsuits. Instead, they called in sick. As auxiliary officers, Metcalf and Ruffner volunteered their time to the department and did not need permission to take a trip.

"Capt. Mackey, Chief Johnson, or both, wanted to teach [the officers] a lesson by public embarrassment and humiliating them," the lawsuits state.

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