Paul Cumby at his Chicopee home on Jan. 10, 2018.

Dan Glaun | dglaun@masslive.com

By Dan Glaun | MassLive

The 33 months since Paul Cumby was assaulted outside a Springfield bar, allegedly by a group of off-duty Springfield police officers, have left him a wounded man.

But the 12 Springfield officers under investigation in the case, including both those accused of beating him and his cousins as well as others facing administrative charges for their responses to the fight, have not yet had disciplinary hearings.

As Cumby has spent his days caring for his 3-year-old daughter, while recovering from surgery on an ankle broken in the attack, the passing time has curdled into frustration as his case has languished without resolution.

It has been nearly a year since District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced that no criminal charges would be brought in the case, saying that while Cumby and his cousins were victims of an assault, the identifications of those who assaulted them were not strong enough to bring a case.

And it has been longer than that since the police department's internal investigation into the fight was completed, with planned hearing dates for the accused officers repeatedly pushed back -- due in part, according to the city, to a flood of legal requests from officers' attorneys and the untimely death of one of the officers' lawyers.

Cumby has watched as other Springfield officers have faced quick condemnation and consequences for their misconduct, while the ones accused of escalating a barroom argument over a woman into a parking lot brawl stay on the streets. In August, Officer Conrad Lariviere posted insensitive Facebook comments about the car crash that killed protester Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Va.; four months later he was fired.

"He just made a statement, and he already had a hearing and been fired. I can't get a hearing and it's been three years," Cumby said during an interview at the Chicopee condo he shares with his long-term girlfriend and daughter. "I don't know what to think of it. It's like they're burying it, or they're trying to bury it. It's confusing to me."

The delays are not intentional, Springfield City Solicitor Ed Pikula wrote in an email. Rather, they are the results of numerous legal challenges and freedom of information act requests by the officers' attorneys, he said.

"The city shares his frustration. This case has taken a lot longer than anticipated and much longer than we wanted," Pikula wrote. "Since the DA issued his decision not to prosecute, the main reason for delay has been several different complaints involving various agencies at the state level."

Those complaints include petitions to the state Attorney General, the Secretary of State and the Department of Labor Relations, the last of which were disposed of in December, Pikula wrote.

The discovery process is now taking place, and is proceeding more slowly than anticipated due to the number of documents in play, according to Pikula, and the city hopes to complete the disciplinary process in the next two to three months.

Springfield patrolman's union president Joseph Gentile did not return a request for comment.

"Obviously my client's frustrated and it shouldn't take this long," Cumby's attorney Michelle Cruz said.

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The barroom at Nathan Bill's Bar and Restaurant.

Dan Glaun | dglaun@masslive.com

The attack

For decades, Cumby has attempted to live a quiet life. The two misdemeanor convictions on his record are from the 1990s; one, a motor vehicle infraction, and the other a 1992 disorderly conduct charge he says he was pressured to plead guilty to after being falsely charged with assault and battery against an officer -- a charge that was later dropped.

Since the year 2000 he has no record, according to a CORI report he showed MassLive. For 17 years, he worked installing sprinkler systems for the Chicopee-based company Aqua-Matic; it was physically intensive labor that he found calming and kept him fit. He and another worker would travel across Massachusetts and Connecticut, digging, installing valves and pulling pipes.

"That's why I liked it. I'm not in one spot. I don't like staying still," Cumby said. "It's a physical job, and that's what I wanted."

And seven years ago he began dating his girlfriend Becky, settling into a life of steady work and domestic responsibility. In 2014, they had a daughter. April 7, 2015, the night of the assault, was the first time he had gone out for drinks since she was born, he and his girlfriend said.

That night, Cumby went to Nathan Bill's Bar and Restaurant with his cousins Jozelle and Jackie Ligon and their friend Michael Cintron. Jozelle became involved in an argument with another group of patrons over whether Ligon had whistled at or hit on a woman in the other party. The victims told investigators a bar employee identified the other group as off-duty Springfield police officers.

Uniformed police officers who were at Nathan Bill's on an unrelated call confirmed that off-duty officers Daniel Billingsley, Melissa Rodrigues, Christian Cicero and Anthony Cicero were at the bar at 1:15 a.m., about 50 minutes before the assault, according to an internal investigation report.

Cumby, Cintron and the Ligons were asked to leave the bar to de-escalate the argument. About an hour later they were attacked by a group of men near the parking lot of a Rocky's hardware store a block away from the bar, according to a report released by Gulluni's office.

Cumby suffered serious injuries including a fractured ankle and four damaged front teeth. Jackie Ligon was hit and kicked in the torso and head while on the ground, and Jozelle Ligon and Cintron had cuts and bruises, according to the DA's report.

Investigators with the police department's Major Crimes Unit showed Cumby and his cousins hundreds of images in a photo array, and while Cumby's cousins did identify specific officers as being present at the fight, their identifications were not clear or consistent enough to bring criminal charges, the DA's office said. Cumby, who was struck in the head and knocked unconscious at the start of the fight, said he did not have clear memories of his attackers' faces.

All of the officers accused of being involved in the fight have asserted their Fifth Amendment right not to speak to investigators.

Cumby first spoke publicly about the assault to MassLive in October of 2016. MassLive has subsequently obtained documents, including emails between police officials and the department's internal investigation, that confirm details of Cumby's story -- including the circumstances and timing of the fight and that he was made to wait for hours when he attempted to file a complaint at Springfield Police Headquarters.

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The approach from Nathan Bill's Bar and Restaurant that Paul Cumby says a group of off duty Springfield police officers traveled to confront him and his cousins.

Dan Glaun | dglaun@masslive.com

'They ruined our lives'

On Wednesday evening, Cumby's living room was covered in a kalaedoscopic array of his daughter's toys -- colorful playhouses and miniature cars, plastic towers and a red plastic barn. At the start of the interview, Cumby's girlfriend Becky offered a reporter a glass of water, then vanished into an adjacent room.

She and Cumby describe themselves as deeply private people, driven further inward by a crisis they believe has made them a target of both the Springfield police department and public opinion.

The department's internal investigation found that officers who had no role in the investigation looked up Cumby's police record after the fight, despite him being described in the police report as a victim -- information that supported the couple's suspicions that Springfield officers had driven by and parked outside their Chicopee home in the months after the attack.

When Becky re-entered the living room about an hour into the interview, she sat down on a sofa, shifting nervously. She was reluctant to speak, but had something to say.

"They ruined our lives, basically. He's not the same person he was before," she said, brushing tears away behind the frames of her glasses. "It's taken a toll."

The night of the assault, Becky and Cumby spoke on the phone for nearly an hour after he left the bar. He told her there had been a verbal argument with off-duty officers.

"I hear him say oh, no they're coming back. And that's the last thing I hear from him," she said.

She called hospitals and police stations, amid rising fear that he could be injured or worse. When they finally reconnected, him with a broken leg and a concussion, it was both a relief and the start of a new chapter of worry.

Cumby, who had surgery on his ankle in November of 2016, can no longer cope with the physical demands of his previous job and is now taking care of their daughter full-time. Their previously two-income household now runs solely on Becky's work as a pharmacy technician, and they are stretched thin.

Aqua-Matic confirmed Cumby's account of his employment and that his injury has prevented him from returning to work.

"In my work, I have to be strong. I have to take care of all three of us," Becky said.

"[The officers involved] probably had a good Christmas," Cumby replied. "We didn't have a Christmas."

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Springfield Police headquarters.

File photo / The Republican

Living in fear

The family is surviving largely because MassHealth has covered much of Cumby's medical expenses, he said. He has applied for social security disability insurance but has not yet heard back, and the jobs for which he is qualified and do not involve standing on his injured ankle would barely cover the cost of childcare, he said.

"It's extremely tight, check to check," he said. "We don't have no babysitter or daycare. I have to bring her to school, feed her, take care of her. Right now, I'm Mr. Mom."

Beyond finances, there is also fear, Cumby and his girlfriend said. Both said they have seen Springfield police pull up in front of their building in Chicopee.

"It was an unmarked car, but it was a Springfield uniform they were wearing," Cumby said.

Cumby's psychologist has diagnosed him with PTSD, he said. He rarely goes to Springfield anymore, even to visit his cousins. One night, when he and Becky went to a Springfield restaurant to get burgers, a Springfield officer entered the building and Cumby began shaking.

Becky said the reaction appeared to be fright; Cumby described it as anger. The impetus, he said, was the uncertainty -- the gnawing worry that any officer could be one of the ones who beat him, whose faces he cannot remember.

"Every time I see a young cop, it gets to me," Cumby said. "I think it might be one of them."

Cumby also expressed frustration with what he perceives as a lack of support from Springfield's political and civil rights leadership. He said he attempted to contact Springfield City Councilor Marcus Williams, former City Councilor and current State Rep. Bud Williams and Springfiedl NAACP President Bishop Talbert W. Swan II about his story and did not hear back.

Asked about Cumby's account, Marcus Williams said he had inadvertently missed his email when it was first sent and has now reached out to him.

Swan wrote in an email that he had never heard from Cumby, and that his organization has a formal process in which written complaints are reviewed by a legal committee who recommends whether the Springfield NAACP should get involved. Cumby never filed a formal complaint, Swan wrote.

Rep. Bud Williams did not respond to an email seeking comment.