Houston police lawsuit may see trial this week

PALMER — A trial for the wrongful termination lawsuit filed against the city of Houston by its last and final police captain may begin Wednesday.

Or it might not.

Houston Mayor Virgie Thompson said a crowded criminal docket might end up pushing the trial off of the calendar if it can’t be transferred to another judge.

“We’re hoping to start jury selection Wednesday,” she said.

Charlie McAnally is the plaintiff in the lawsuit. Listed as defendants are the city, Thompson, former deputy mayor Jim Johansen, city treasurer Carolyn Grabowski and Dallas Massie, a retired Alaska State Trooper who has no formal relationship with the city.

McAnally alleges everything from breach of contract to unfair labor practices to retaliation, wrongful termination and violation of his constitutional rights. The allegations against Massie essentially accuse him of defamation, claiming Massie said unflattering things to the Houston City Council about McAnally.

A city court filing from earlier this year sums up the city’s take on McAnally’s allegations: McAnally wasn’t retaliated against or wrongfully fired. He was fired because he was a bad employee.

Massie likewise disagrees with McAnally’s assertions.

“No evidence has generated to support any truth of (McAnally’s) allegations,” reads a document prepared by Massie’s lawyer earlier this fall. “Instead, (McAnally’s) ongoing effort is to quiet Dallas Massie, which has not been an acceptable resolution.”

McAnally’s tenure as head of the city’s tiny police department was a brief and troubled one, punctuated with the captain’s allegations of misconduct on the part of city officials and assertions about a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe that never materialized.

“There is no evidence to support his claims that there was ever any embezzlement or open FBI investigations into wrongdoing by Mayor Thompson or Treasurer Grabowski. On the contrary, the evidence shows that McAnally would often himself retaliate against his colleagues, reacting to confrontation by accusing his superiors of criminal conduct,” a city filing in the lawsuit reads.

When McAnally was terminated in 2011 the city opted to close its police department, too.

The department — which employed mostly surplus equipment from other departments and for major stretches of its history employed just one officer, but sometimes grew to include two or three — hired its first officer in 2004.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.