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D on. WA UV. MACDONALD Carolyn Grace, Assistant United States Attorney, -with whom Edward F. Harrington, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee Robert D. MacDonald. April 18, 1979 Bownss, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff is. the mother of Anthony C. Maiorana who was shot and killed in the course of an arrest on February 15, 1974, by local, state and fed- ~eral law enforcement officers. As administyatrix of her son’s estate, she brought two actions for damages under 28 U.S.C. § 1983 and the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution.t The first complaint was filed against Massachusetts State Police Officers: James Jajuga, Robert : J. Long, and Ronald Guilmette; the second, against Robert - D. MacDonald, a special agent of the Federal Bureau of - Aleohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Robert Scirve, a Woburn police officer. The district court granted sum- mary judgment for all defendants, which ruling is. chal- denged on appeal. . , The plaintiff’s claim is a serious one: that the defend- ants acted with gross negligence, bad faith, and excessive force in killing her son while attempting to. arrest him.? _ 1 The basis of the fourth amendment claim against federal agent MacDonald is attentuated at best: plaintiff allegéd in her original complaint that the intended arrest of Maiorana was unlawful. The precise basis of this claim against MacDonald was that the imminent arrest was purportedly for Maiorana’s armed robbery of a Friendly ice cream store, a state offense. Plaintiff argues that, since MacDonald was a federal agent, he had no authority to be involved in arrest for a state offense. We think this argu- ment strains the outer parameters of the federal rules’ mandate to give a liberal reading to complaints and all reasonable infer- ences drawn therefrom. However, since it is unclear whether plain- tiff also claimed that the proposed arrest would have been made Without probable cause, we read the contplaint as properly, albeit marginally, stating a claimed violation of the fourth amendment. Since we affirm the district court’s judgment for defendant, we need not and do not reach the question of whether the facts alleged | herein could underpin a constitutional tort premised on Bivens.” ?On appeal, the plaintiff has: abandoned her even more serious allegation that the state police defendants conspired to kill her son, = 2a - oY ee ars owe eee aterm sess wens os meee