SPRINGFIELD — A Springfield police captain who was recently suspended for pulling a gun on someone during a parking lot dispute outside Walmart had been suspended previously for posting insulting comments about people on Facebook.

Capt. Richard Labelle was quietly suspended by then-Commissioner John Barbieri for one day without pay on Jan. 30, 2018 for violating department rules in regard to being being respectful to members of the general public.

The complaint centered on Labelle making insulting comments directed at two people in the comment section of a Sept. 25, 2017 article about NFL players kneeling for the National Anthem that had been posted on Masslive’s Facebook page.

In the comments, Labelle is accused of calling one commenter “a liar and morally reprehensible,” and saying that another “couldn’t keep a job bagging groceries.”

Labelle was suspended again last week, this time for five days without pay, by acting Police Commissioner Cheryl C. Clapprood.

This suspension came after a complaint that Labelle on April 20 drew his gun during an off-duty confrontation in the parking lot of the Boston Road Walmart.

When the 5-day suspension is complete, Labelle will remain on administrative leave within the department until the Hampden District Attorney’s Office completes its investigation and determines if he should stand trial.

In the 2018 suspension, Labelle was off-duty at the time and posting comments from his home computer on the MassLive Facebook page. He was not using any department resources.

But because someone in the thread commented that she knew Labelle was a Springfield police officer, Barbieri determined Labelle should have known he needed to be on his best behavior. Labelle appealed the suspension to the state Civil Service Commission on Feb. 9, 2018.

This is all news 16 months afterward not only because of the Walmart incident, but because the Civil Service Commission two weeks ago issued a report upholding the suspension and denying Labelle’s appeal.

The 4-to-1 vote was taken April 11, nine days before the Walmart altercation.

The subject of maintaining proper decorum on the internet should have been pretty fresh in the minds of Springfield police at the time Labelle got into it with strangers on Facebook.

Just five weeks earlier, another Springfield police officer, Conrad Lariviere, found himself in hot water for comments he made in response to a man driving a car through a crowd of anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Lariviere would be mentioned in news sites and blogs all over the world, and thousands of people called for the three-year officer to be fired.

On Dec.1, 2017, he was fired.

Springfield police, at the time of both incidents, had no policies regarding social media. But the department does have a long-standing code of conduct that applies to off-duty actions. It was cited by Barbieri as justification for the one-day suspension, and again by the commission in voting to deny Labelle’s appeal.

Department rule 29 rules states “Employees shall, on all occasions, be civil and respectful, courteous and considerate toward their supervisors, their subordinates, and all other members of the department and the general public.”

Rule 29 goes on to say “no employee share use epithets or terms that tend to denigrate a particular rates or ethnic group except when necessary in police reports or testimony.”

The phrase “on all occasions” applies to on-duty and off-duty actions, and even apparently covers trash-talking on social media.

According to the commission report, Labelle got into trouble after a heated exchange with two people via Facebook identified only by their initials, “C.S.” and “J.S.”

Someone posted a cartoon in the comments showing a white man pointing at a kneeling football player and shouting “that’s offensive,” but ignoring the bleeding black man facedown behind him.

C.S. expressed she agreed with the cartoon, and Labelle interjected to call C.S. “a lying bigot.”

The report notes that a friend of C.S. saw the exchange between the two, recognized Labelle as a member of the police, and called C.S. to let her know.

When C.S. next responded to Labelle, she referred to him as “officer,” and that she intended to let his employer know that he had “violated their social media policy by spreading slander.”

Labelle is said to have replied “Got it (C.S.). You’re a liar and morally reprehensible.”

In the same thread, Labelle replied to J.S., who had previously referred to supporters of President Trump as “sheep,” by writing “Childish response but not surprising for someone who couldn’t keep a job bagging groceries. Lol sheep, you are the one out to pasture.”

The remark about bagging groceries referred to the Facebook profile for J.S. who identified himself as a former service clerk.

C.S. printed out the exchanges involving Labelle and sent them in a complaint to Barbieri, who appointed Clapprood in charge of the investigation.

Clapprood completed her investigation by Oct. 10, and recommended in a report to Barbieri that no punitive action be taken against Labelle.

She did not find he violated any rules, or that he had referred to his position with the department in order to threaten or intimidate anyone.

Barbieri brought the matter to the Community Police Hearing Board, and on Jan. 24, 2018, the board found him in violation of the respectful treatment clause in Rule 29.

Based on that, Barbieri suspended him for a day.

Barbieri justified the suspension to the commission by saying once C.S. identified Labelle in the comments as a police officer, his connection to the department and to the city was out in the open, and the 20-year veteran of the department should have known to act accordingly.

Civil Service Commission Chairman Christopher Bowman keyed in on this point in his opinion to deny the appeal.

“At the midpoint of their conversation, Capt. Labelle knew that C.S. was aware of his position as a police officer for the Springfield police department. I gave the most weight to the posting made from this point forward.”

The Civil Service Commission has previously ruled that public officials may be disciplined for off-duty actions that have a negative effect on how the officials are perceived at their jobs.

The U.S. Supreme Court and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court have each ruled previously of government agencies need to conduct a balancing act when it comes to employees exercising their First Amendment rights while protecting the agency’s standing and reputation with the public.

Bowman in his response referred to these, and said Labelle, as a supervisor within the police department, does not have “free reign” to insult members of the public.

“The department has a right to expect that its police officers, particularly those that hold the rank of captain, treat all citizens with respect and courtesy — and the department’s rules explicitly require it. Captain Labelle violated that rule and the city’s decision to implement a short, one-day suspension to correct his boorish behavior did not violate Captain Labelle’s First Amendment rights.”

The Republican reached out to C.S., who agreed to comment as long as she was not identified.

She said she remembers the incident and being angry enough to file a complaint with the department.

“Bad behavior doesn’t just stop,” she said. “He must have been doing stuff like this for years (but) this time he got caught.”

She said she wanted to think that maybe he would learn from the experience, but then she read about him in the Walmart parking lot.

“If this was a teachable moment, will he change? I don’t know. Time will tell,” she said.