Johnson v. Paragon Systems, Inc.


UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ___________________________________ ) DENNIS JOHNSON, ) ) Plaintiff, ) Civil Action ) No. 15-1851(EGS) v. ) ) PARAGON SYSTEMS, INC., et al., ) ) Defendants. ) ___________________________________) MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiff Dennis Johnson, a retired law enforcement officer, claims that he was improperly detained and harassed after he entered an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) facility with a handgun. He has sued the private security contractors — MVM, Inc. (“MVM”) and Paragon Systems, Inc.(“Paragon”) — allegedly responsible for security at that ICE facility, along with Federal Protective Services (“FPS”) and one of its employees, Christopher Addams (collectively, “Federal Defendants”). Pending before the Court are MVM and the Federal Defendants’ motions to dismiss the amended complaint. For the reasons articulated below, the Court GRANTS defendants’ motions and dismisses Mr. Johnson’s complaint. I. BACKGROUND On October 31, 2012, Mr. Johnson arrived at an ICE facility and entered the building with a loaded handgun in his briefcase. 1 Am. Compl., ECF No. 12 ¶ 10. 1 As a retired federal law enforcement officer, Mr. Johnson asserts that he is entitled to carry a firearm on federal property at any time. Id. ¶ 10. Nonetheless — perhaps because Mr. Johnson inadvertently entered the ICE facility through the visitors' entrance and not the employees' entrance — Mr. Johnson was immediately detained by security guards allegedly employed or supervised by defendants. Id. ¶¶ 10-13. According to Mr. Johnson, even though he promptly displayed his law-enforcement badge to the security guards, and even though the security guards were allegedly notified that Mr. Johnson was entitled to bring his weapon into the building, the security guards "handcuffed Plaintiff for over two hours." Id. ¶¶ 13-15. Mr. Johnson further alleges that Christopher Addams — a FPS employee who supposedly supervised "either a Paragon Systems employee or MVM employee" — threatened to initiate criminal proceedings against Mr. Johnson for his conduct. Id. ¶¶ 16-17. Mr. Addams purportedly continued to threaten Mr. Johnson with legal action for a period of over two months after the incident, through December 2012. Id. 1 When citing electronic filings in this opinion, the Court cites to the ECF page number, not the page number of the filed document. 2 Based on these allegations, Mr. Johnson filed suit on October 31, 2015 against Paragon. See Compl., ECF No. 1. In that complaint, Mr. Johnson asserted four causes of action: (1) a "Civil Rights Violation" pursuant to section 1983; (2) assault and battery; (3) intentional infliction of emotional distress; and (4) common-law negligence. Id. ¶¶ 18-35. On July 1, 2016, the Court granted Paragon's partial motion to dismiss, dismissing Mr. Johnson's claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress after concluding that Mr. Johnson had failed to sufficiently allege that his injury resulted from "extreme and outrageous conduct." See Johnson v. Paragon Sys., Inc., 195 F. Supp. 3d 96 (D.D.C. 2016). Almost a year after initially filing suit, on October 21, 2016, Mr. Johnson filed an amended complaint that omitted his ...

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