Full Opinion

USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 1 of 31 FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-12650 ____________________ HUBERT ARTURO ACEVEDO, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus CITY OF MIAMI, et al., Defendants, ALEX DIAZ DE LA PORTILLA, MANUEL REYES, in his capacity as Personal Representative of the Estate of Manuel Ernesto Reyes, ARTHUR NORIEGA, JOE CAROLLO, individually, Defendants-Appellants. USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 2 of 31 2 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 ____________________ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-20224-KMW ____________________ Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and BRASHER and ABUDU, Cir- cuit Judges. BRASHER, Circuit Judge: This appeal is about a whistleblower, the First Amendment, and qualified immunity. According to the complaint, the defend- ants—Miami City Commissioners Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Manuel Reyes, and Joe Carollo, as well as City Manager Arthur Noriega— suspended and terminated the plaintiff, Police Chief Hubert Acevedo, in retaliation for a whistleblowing memo that he wrote to outside law enforcement agencies implicating the defendant Commissioners. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint based on legislative and qualified immunity, and the district court denied the motion. Because the district court denied their immun- ity defenses, the defendants appealed. We agree in part and disagree in part with the district court. Based on the facts in the complaint, which control at this stage of litigation, we determine that the defendant Commissioners are not entitled to qualified immunity. On the other hand, Manager Nor- iega is. Accordingly, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings. USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 3 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 3 I. This appeal comes to us from the district court’s denial of the defendant City Commissioners’, and Manager Noriega’s, mo- tions to dismiss. Because the appeal arises from that stage of litiga- tion, we accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true. Keat- ing v. City of Miami, 598 F.3d 753, 762 (11th Cir. 2010). And we take all inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Id. The following facts are based on Acevedo’s complaint, read in light of that standard. A. This dispute began in early 2020, when the Miami City Com- mission passed Resolution No. R-20-0034. The Resolution in- structed the City Commission or the City Manager to direct most criminal investigations of City elected officials to Florida state law enforcement or the FBI. The City Commission ostensibly adopted the Resolution to prevent the appearance of corruption. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and City Manager Noriega later recruited Acevedo to serve as the Miami Chief of Police. They recruited him due to his reputation as a reformist, given that there was a “need to reform” the Miami Police Department “and [to] change the culture of the department.” Doc. 1 at 3. Shortly after Acevedo assumed his position, certain Com- missioners—namely, defendant Commissioners Diaz de la Portilla, Reyes, and Carollo—improperly involved themselves in an inter- nal police investigation. Acevedo ordered an investigation into an alleged breach of operational security committed by officer Luis USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 4 of 31 4 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 Camacho. Based on the investigation, Acevedo relieved Camacho of duty. The City Commission then summoned Acevedo before them. At the ensuing public meeting, Commissioners Diaz de la Portilla, Reyes, and Carollo berated him for suspending Camacho without due process. Carollo said: “[w]hile I have been walking very softly, I carry a hell of a big stick, and it don’t matter what time of the year it is, whether it is election time, or not election time.” Doc. 1 at 15. Even after this meeting, the defendant Commissioners continued pressuring Acevedo in private, with Diaz de la Portilla even offering to support Acevedo for Sheriff of Miami-Dade County if he just did “the right thing on Camacho and g[o]t him back.” Id. at 17. Even more alarmingly, Acevedo witnessed certain City Commissioners using the police force to settle personal, political feuds. For example, several city officials warned Acevedo that Commissioner Carollo had a vendetta against Bill Fuller, a local businessowner, for backing Carollo’s political opponent. Manager Noriega, Commissioner Diaz de la Portilla, and Mayor Suarez all told Acevedo to avoid patronizing Fuller’s business lest he attract Carollo’s ire. And Noriega directed Acevedo to investigate any po- tential wrongdoing by Fuller’s businesses, suggesting that this or- der came at the behest of Carollo. When the Division of Alcohol, Beverages, and Tobacco, in tandem with the Miami Police Department, eventually investi- gated one of Fuller’s businesses, the police report stated that the business had received a written warning of liquor law violations. USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 5 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 5 This statement was in error, as no violation had been found. When Fuller’s associates read the report, they alerted Acevedo of this er- ror. Acevedo directed one of his officers, Officer Morales, to inves- tigate the error. But Acevedo later learned that Morales defied this order and did not follow up regarding either this error or the inves- tigation into Fuller’s businesses. Later, the Miami Police Department conducted two more unannounced inspections of Fuller’s businesses. During one of these inspections, the police arrested the general manager for alleg- edly operating an illegal nightclub. The State Attorney’s Office ul- timately dropped the resultant charges. And throughout this time, Carollo continued to pressure Acevedo to aggressively investigate Fuller’s businesses, alleging that Fuller was bribing code enforce- ment officials and police officers. But neither Acevedo nor key In- ternal Affairs officers ever saw any evidence to support this claim. Unrelated to the incidents involving Fuller, the Commission summoned Acevedo to appear before another public Commission meeting. There, Carollo and Diaz de la Portilla named specific bars and establishments that they wanted Acevedo to investigate. And Diaz de la Portilla later emailed Acevedo to reiterate which busi- nesses the police should target. But at no time did he suggest that the City had received complaints about these businesses, nor did he provide Acevedo with any evidence that these establishments had violated the law. During and after the above events, Acevedo warned Mayor Suarez and Manager Noriega about the improprieties that he had USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 6 of 31 6 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 witnessed. He stressed to them that he was alarmed by the Com- missioners’ involvement with the internal Camacho investigation and that he was concerned that the Commissioners were acting be- yond their authority. He further alerted them to the fact that the defendant Commissioners were attempting to intimidate him and to use the Police Department to advance personal agendas. Suarez and Noriega told Acevedo that this was just the way things worked in Miami. B. Alarmed, Acevedo wrote and circulated a “whistle-blowing memorandum.” 1 Doc. 1 at 23. He sent this memo to Suarez, Nor- iega, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, and the FBI. He did so because he felt that he could not investigate any wrongdoing by the Commissioners, hamstrung as he was by the 2020 Resolution. The memo included the details relayed above, describing how cer- tain Commissioners had “attempted to weaponize the [Police De- 1 Here, based on the “incorporation by reference” doctrine, the contents of Acevedo’s whistleblowing memo are included in the complaint. See Swinford v. Santos, 121 F.4th 179, 187 (11th Cir. 2024) (“[A] district court may consider evidence attached to a motion to dismiss without converting the motion into a motion for summary judgment if the document is (1) central to the plaintiff’s claim; and (2) undisputed, meaning that its authenticity is not challenged.” (ci- tation modified)). USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 7 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 7 partment], interfered with [Police Department] internal and exter- nal investigations, and impeded reform at the [Department].” Id. at 24. The memo leaked to the media. Even after it was leaked to the press, Acevedo’s memo did not disrupt the functioning of the Police Department or the munic- ipal government. Indeed, the Commission has no “authority to manage the [Police Department] or otherwise dictate [Police De- partment] decisions.” Id. at 4. As a result, the memo could not, and in fact did not, have any negative effect on the Commission’s ability to run the department—a power which it did not have. Nevertheless, upon receiving the memo, Noriega called Acevedo. He told Acevedo: So you’ve gone after [the defendant Commissioners], and [you’d] better be sure you have a kill shot because if you don’t, you better not take it. Maybe it’s because you’re an outsider it’s easier for you. Trust me, I came from my last job where I had a hell of a lot more au- tonomy than I have here, but I realize and accept my limitations. Doc. 1 at 24. The Commission then held a special meeting. The defend- ant Commissioners—Diaz de la Portilla, Reyes, and Carollo— launched into a series of heated attacks on Acevedo and his perfor- mance. Carollo even raised false allegations about Acevedo that stemmed from before his time as Chief of Police. And the Commis- sioners played video of Acevedo in an Elvis costume, noting his USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 8 of 31 8 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 tight pants, and compared Acevedo to former Chief of Police Don Warshaw, a convicted felon. At the end of this meeting, the Com- mission passed a resolution to investigate the wrongdoing alleged in Acevedo’s memo. The Commission subsequently held another special meet- ing to discuss Acevedo. At this meeting, they continued their at- tacks on him, arguing that he was “no reformer” and noting that he was “not a Cuban-American from Miami.” Doc. 1 at 27. They then voted to eliminate funding for high-ranking positions within the Miami Police Department. In the wake of these meetings, Noriega suspended Acevedo with pay pending a termination hearing. He provided Acevedo with a memo that outlined the reasons for his suspension. The complaint dismisses these reasons as pretextual. And when Nor- iega provided Acevedo with the memo, he told Acevedo that that Acevedo had “gone too far” and that he, Noriega, needed to “stop the bleeding” by suspending him. Doc. 1 at 28–29. Noriega then scheduled Acevedo’s termination hearing for just a few days later, on a day when Acevedo’s primary lawyers were unavailable. When Acevedo asked if the hearing could be pushed back a few days so that his lawyers could be present, Noriega refused. At the ensuing termination hearing, Noriega called four wit- nesses. As Noriega and Acevedo were questioning these witnesses, the Commissioners—ostensibly serving as impartial jurors in the hearing—repeatedly inveighed against Acevedo and badgered the USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 9 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 9 witnesses. One of the non-defendant Commissioners even in- formed the others that they were revealing their bias. Unsurpris- ingly, at the conclusion of the meeting, the Commissioners termi- nated Acevedo. According to the complaint, they did so “because [Acevedo] had reported their misconduct to City Manager Nor- iega, Mayor Suarez, the State Attorney’s Office, and the FBI.” Doc. 1 at 30. After Acevedo was fired, Officer Morales, the same officer who earlier defied Acevedo’s instruction to investigate the error in the police report on Fuller’s business, was appointed interim Chief. The Commissioners “chose Officer Morales” for the role “because he carries out their orders without question and allows [them] to abuse [Police Department] resources to carry out personal agendas and vendettas.” Doc. 1 at 11. And when Morales was sworn in as interim Chief, at a ceremony attended by the defendant Commis- sioners and Manager Noriega, Carollo played the theme music from The Godfather. C. Acevedo sued the three defendant Commissioners—Com- missioners Diaz de la Portilla, Reyes, and Carollo—and Manager Noriega for retaliation in violation of Acevedo’s First Amendment rights, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 2 In response, each individual defend- 2 Though not relevant here, Acevedo also sued the City of Miami under the Florida Whistleblower Act, Fla. Stat. § 112.3187. USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 10 of 31 10 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 ant moved for dismissal based on qualified immunity. Two defend- ant Commissioners also moved for dismissal based on legislative immunity. After a hearing, the district court denied all motions to dis- miss. The individual defendants timely filed notices of appeal. II. This Court reviews the district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss based on immunity de novo. Keating, 598 F.3d at 762. When reviewing such a denial, as discussed above, we accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable infer- ences in the plaintiff’s favor. Id. III. First, we discuss the defendant Commissioners’ argument that they are entitled to legislative immunity. Second, we turn to their argument that they are shielded by qualified immunity. Third, we turn to Manager Noriega’s contention that he is entitled to qualified immunity. We determine that, although the defendant Commissioners do not enjoy the protection of either legislative or qualified immunity at this stage, Manager Noriega is entitled to qualified immunity. A. We begin with legislative immunity. Commissioners Car- ollo and Reyes argue that their decision to terminate Acevedo is protected by legislative immunity. Although Commissioner Diaz USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 11 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 11 de la Portilla purports to raise this argument on appeal, he did not argue legislative immunity below. As a result, he has forfeited the defense of legislative immunity. See Scott v. Taylor, 405 F.3d 1251, 1258 (11th Cir. 2005) (Jordan, J., concurring) (noting that “[l]egisla- tive immunity is an affirmative defense which can be waived or forfeited, and, unless raised, does not affect the power of a federal court to adjudicate.” (citing Kingman Park Civic Ass’n v. Williams, 348 F.3d 1033, 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2003))). Regardless, none of the de- fendant Commissioners are entitled to legislative immunity. This Court has held that “[a]bsolute legislative immunity ex- tends only to actions taken within the sphere of legitimate legisla- tive activity.” Brown v. Crawford County, 960 F.2d 1002, 1011 (11th Cir. 1992) (citation modified). When considering whether the rele- vant actions fall within this sphere, we must determine whether the actions were “legislative” in nature or “executive” or “adminis- trative” in nature. Littlejohn v. Sch. Bd. of Leon Cnty., 132 F.4th 1232, 1242 (11th Cir. 2025). Legislative acts generally apply to a broad swathe of society. Id. But executive or administrative acts, to which legislative immunity does not attach, “apply to a limited number of persons and typically arise from the ministerial or administrative activities of members of the executive branch.” Id. (citation modi- fied). Put otherwise, “if the decision impacts specific individuals, rather than the general population, it is more apt to be administra- tive in nature.” Crymes v. DeKalb County, 923 F.2d 1482, 1485 (11th Cir. 1991). USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 12 of 31 12 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 Because “employment and personnel decisions are adminis- trative in nature,” legislative immunity does not apply here. Smith v. Lomax, 45 F.3d 402, 405 (11th Cir. 1995). Terminating Acevedo was an employment and personnel decision. It “appl[ied] to a lim- ited number of persons and . . . ar[ose] from the ministerial [and] administrative activities” of the Commission. Littlejohn, 132 F.4th at 1242 (citation modified). Therefore, the district court did not err in denying Reyes’s and Carollo’s motion to dismiss based on legis- lative immunity. B. Having determined that the defendant Commissioners are not entitled to legislative immunity, we now discuss whether they are entitled to qualified immunity. Though this is a much closer question, we determine that—at this stage of litigation—they are not. The qualified immunity test is a familiar one. “To obtain a dismissal based on qualified immunity, a government official must first establish that he was acting within the scope of his discretion- ary authority when the alleged wrongful act occurred.” Echols v. Lawton, 913 F.3d 1313, 1319 (11th Cir. 2019) (citation modified). If the official was acting within the scope of his discretion, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to overcome qualified immunity. Mikko v. City of Atlanta, 857 F.3d 1136, 1144 (11th Cir. 2017). And for a plaintiff like Acevedo to carry this burden, he must satisfy both parts of the qualified immunity analysis. He must plead facts establishing that the official violated a statutory or constitutional right. Ashcroft v. al- USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 13 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 13 Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 735 (2011). And he must prove that the right was “clearly established,” or that the “state of the law at the time of the violation” gave the “officials fair warning that their conduct was unconstitutional.” Hughes v. Locure, 166 F.4th 121, 128 (11th Cir. 2026) (citation modified). Because no one contests that the Commissioners were act- ing within the scope of their discretion when they terminated Acevedo, the burden shifts to him. The next question is whether he has satisfied his burden. In considering this question, we again must accept all factual allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in Acevedo’s favor. Keating, 598 F.3d at 762. When we do so, we determine that Acevedo has carried his burden and that qualified immunity does not protect the defendant Commissioners. 1. We begin with the first qualified immunity element: whether the defendant Commissioners violated Acevedo’s First Amendment rights. Acevedo alleges that he was terminated be- cause he had drafted and circulated a memo alleging wrongdoing on the part of the Commissioners. We determine that, based on the facts alleged in the complaint, the defendant Commissioners impermissibly retaliated against Acevedo for his protected speech and thus violated his constitutional rights. At the outset, we must decide whether Acevedo has alleged an “adverse employment action” sufficient to establish a retaliation claim. Akins v. Fulton County, 420 F.3d 1293, 1300 (11th Cir. 2005). USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 14 of 31 14 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 He has done so here. This Court has held that “discharges, demo- tions, refusals to hire or promote, and reprimands” constitute ad- verse employment actions. Id. Because the defendant Commission- ers discharged Acevedo, Acevedo has established an adverse em- ployment action. We then turn to examining the nature of Acevedo’s speech. Deciding whether the First Amendment protects a public em- ployee’s speech requires “a careful balance between the interests of the employee, as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of . . . an employer[] in promoting the ef- ficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Lane v. Franks, 573 U.S. 228, 231 (2014) (citation modified). There- fore, to establish First Amendment retaliation, an employee like Acevedo must prove the following: (1) “that the speech was made as a [private] citizen”; (2) that the speech was “on a matter of public concern” or importance; (3) that “the employee’s free speech inter- est . . . outweigh[s] the employer’s interest in effective and efficient fulfillment of its responsibilities”; and (4) that “the speech . . . played a substantial part in the adverse employment ac- tion.” Green v. Finkelstein, 73 F.4th 1258, 1263 (11th Cir. 2023). It is only the first three inquiries that concern us here. Those are questions of law. Id. The fourth inquiry, whether the speech played a substantial role in Acevedo’s termination, is a question of fact. As such, because we are at the motion to dismiss stage, we accept as true Acevedo’s well-pleaded assertion—that the speech was the reason he was fired. USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 15 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 15 a. We start at the beginning, with the first inquiry. Whether Acevedo spoke as a private citizen, in which case First Amendment protections would attach, or as a public employee, in which case they would not, depends on “whether the speech at issue is . . . or- dinarily within the scope of [his] duties.” Lane, 573 U.S. at 240. For speech to be the speech of a public employee, it must be “speech that an employee made in accordance with or in furtherance of the ordinary responsibilities of [his] employment, not merely speech that concerns the ordinary responsibilities of [his] employment.” Alves v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. Sys. of Ga., 804 F.3d 1149, 1162 (11th Cir. 2015). Indeed, “the mere fact that a citizen’s speech con- cerns information acquired by virtue of his public employment does not transform that speech into employee—rather than citi- zen—speech.” Lane, 573 U.S. at 240. Because Acevedo’s whistleblower memo was not, based on the facts in the complaint, “ordinarily within the scope of [Acevedo’s] duties,” it was the speech of a private citizen. Doc. 1 at 39. In the complaint, Acevedo notes that he “had no administrative, disciplinary, or investigative authority over the Commission or its members.” Id. He further stresses that the 2020 Resolution had re- moved from his authority the responsibility for investigating wrongdoing committed by City officials. Id. at 40. As a result, blow- ing the whistle to law enforcement over the defendant Commis- sioners’ misconduct was outside of Acevedo’s ordinary duties. USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 16 of 31 16 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 This Court has determined, at the motion to dismiss stage, that substantially similar speech was speech of a private citizen. See Carollo v. Boria, 833 F.3d 1322 (11th Cir. 2016), abrogated on other grounds by Gilmore v. Ga. Dep’t of Corrs., 111 F.4th 1118 (11th Cir. 2024). In Carollo, the City Manager of Doral, Florida—the same Joe Carollo who is a defendant here—was terminated after alerting fed- eral law enforcement to violations of state and federal law commit- ted by members of the City Council. Id. at 1326. There, Carollo alleged that reporting these matters was not within his ordinary duties. Id. at 1330. This Court determined that these assertions in the complaint were sufficient to establish that Carollo was speaking as a private citizen. Id. Indeed, the Carollo Court noted that, because “formal job descriptions often bear little resemblance to the duties an employee actually is expected to perform,” discovery would be necessary to “illuminate exactly” the scope of Carollo’s ordinary duties. Id. (citation modified). A few years after Carollo, this Court reiterated that speech like Acevedo’s memo is the speech of a private citizen. In King v. Board of County Commissioners, we stressed that when an employee “spoke on something beyond his job duties to persons outside his workplace,” it was the speech of a private person. 916 F.3d 1339, 1350 (11th Cir. 2019). Here, Acevedo sent a memo to the State At- torney’s Office and the FBI, persons outside his workplace, to com- plain of misconduct by the City Commissioners, which the 2020 Resolution removed from his investigatory duties. The fact that he did so is enough to prove that he spoke as a private person. USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 17 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 17 In response, the defendant Commissioners argue that Acevedo’s memo was part of his ordinary job duties (1) because part of the memo was devoted to complaining about the Commis- sioners’ involvement in police matters, which were within his pur- view, and (2) because, notwithstanding the 2020 Resolution, it is the Police Chief’s duty to report crime. In fact, the defendant Com- missioners argue that Acevedo “had a heightened duty to report what others would investigate.” Appellant Commissioners’ Br. at 30 (emphasis added). Both arguments fail. The first argument is baseless, as it attempts to minimize the memo as simply a complaint about workplace mismanagement. But we must construe the allegations in the complaint in favor of Acevedo. We cannot, therefore, conclude that Acevedo would re- port a mere workplace complaint to the FBI. By doing so, we con- clude that Acevedo intended to report misconduct, as he asserts in his complaint. As for the second argument, it is foreclosed by Carollo, 833 F.3d at 1331. In Carollo, this Court rejected the idea that public of- ficials have an “implied duty” to report misconduct. Id. This Court so held because to do otherwise “would eviscerate the role of the First Amendment in protecting public employees who act as whis- tleblowers.” Id. (applying Lane, 573 U.S. at 240–41). b. We now turn to the second inquiry: whether Acevedo’s speech addressed a matter of public concern. In doing so, we con- sider whether the speech can “be fairly considered as relating to USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 18 of 31 18 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community” or if it “is a subject of legitimate news interest.” Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443, 453 (2011) (citation modified). When making this deter- mination, we look to “the content, form, and context of a given statement, as revealed by the whole record.” Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 147–48 (1983). Of these, the “most important factor” is the content of the speech. Mitchell v. Hillsborough County, 468 F.3d 1276, 1284 (11th Cir. 2006). And we ask whether “the main thrust of the speech in question is essentially public in nature or private.” King, 916 F.3d at 1347. The main thrust of the speech in question—Acevedo’s memo—is essentially public. The memo listed several instances in which the defendant Commissioners attempted to weaponize the police department in pursuit of their personal vendettas. The memo also alleged other, unrelated abuses of power on their part. And exposing corruption and abuses of power is a quintessentially public matter. See Lane, 573 U.S. at 241 (“[C]orruption in a public program . . . obviously involves a matter of significant public con- cern.”); see also Stanley v. City of Dalton, 219 F.3d 1280, 1289 (11th Cir. 2000) (“[T]here can be no doubt that corruption in a police de- partment is an issue of public concern.”). In response, the defendant Commissioners argue that the memo’s “main thrust was to promote Acevedo’s interest in inde- pendently running the police department.” Appellant Commis- sioners’ Br. at 32. And in support of this argument, they contend that the memo’s (1) content was primarily about Acevedo’s interest USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 19 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 19 in, and difficulty with, managing the police department free of in- terference, (2) form was a workplace report delivered to Acevedo’s superiors during a workplace dispute, and (3) intent was to be cir- culated privately, not publicly. We disagree. First, though much of the memo focuses on the defendant Commissioners’ interference with police affairs, that concern is framed as a public corruption issue. That is, the complained-of in- terference is cited as evidence of the defendant Commissioners’ misconduct. This context confirms that the memo focuses on a matter of public concern—corruption—instead of Acevedo’s pri- mary interest in managing his own department. Second, it is at best misleading to dismiss the memo as a mere workplace report delivered to Acevedo’s superiors. Though addressed to Mayor Suarez and Manager Noriega, Acevedo also sent the memo to the State Attorney’s Office and the FBI. It would be quite a stretch, indeed, to describe a memo to outside state and federal law enforcement as simply an internal workplace report. And his decision to send the memo to outside law enforcement confirms that he meant for it to be more than a simple internal cat- alogue of grievances. Third, the private nature of the memo does not, contrary to the defendant Commissioners’ arguments, render the content a matter of private concern. This Court has found that a police of- ficer privately reporting misconduct to a state law enforcement agency is speech of a public nature. Fikes v. City of Daphne, 79 F.3d 1079, 1084 (11th Cir. 1996); see also Martinez v. City of Opa-Locka, 971 USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 20 of 31 20 Opinion of the Court 24-12650 F.2d 708, 712 (11th Cir. 1992) (holding that a private report of gov- ernment misconduct to state law enforcement was speech of a pub- lic nature). The fact that Acevedo sent the memo privately, then, is of relatively little significance. Such evidence would simply serve as proof of a speech’s private nature when the content of the speech already indicates as much. See Pearson v. Macon-Bibb Cnty. Hosp. Auth., 952 F.2d 1274, 1278–79 (11th Cir. 1992) (finding that the pri- vate nature of speech merely reinforced the conclusion that the contents of a plaintiff’s speech only “concerned the circumstances of her own employment”). We believe Acevedo’s memo was speech on a matter of pub- lic importance. c. Because Acevedo’s memo was the speech of a private citizen on a matter of public importance, we now turn to applying the Pickering balancing test. Green, 73 F.4th at 1263. This test requires us to balance “the interests of the employee, as a citizen, in com- menting upon matters of public concern and the interest of an em- ployer in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Id. at 1267 (citing Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968) (citation modified)). Factors that the Court can consider include “(1) whether the speech at issue impedes the government’s ability to perform its duties efficiently, (2) the man- ner, time[,] and place of the speech, and (3) the context within which the speech was made.” Belyeu v. Coosa Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 998 F.2d 925, 928 (11th Cir. 1993) (quoting Morales v. Stierheim, 848 F.2d USCA11 Case: 24-12650 Document: 105-1 Date Filed: 08/26/2026 Page: 21 of 31 24-12650 Opinion of the Court 21 1145, 1149 (11th Cir. 1988)). And when applying this test, the key question is “whether the relevant government entity had an ade- quate justification for treating the employee differently from any other member of the general public.” Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 418 (2006). On the limited record before us at the motion to dismiss stage, the Commissioners did not have such a justification. There is no evidence before us to suggest that Acevedo’s memo in any way “impede[d] the government’s ability to perform its duties effi- ciently.” Belyeu, 998 F.2d at 928 (quoting Morales, 848 F.2d at 1149). Indeed, the complaint makes allegations to the contrary. Based on the complaint, the City Commissioners had no oversight and con- trol over the operations of the Miami Police Department. Acevedo further asserts in the complaint that the memo “did not disrupt the functioning of the [Police Department] or the City of Miami.” Doc. 1 at 39. And the manner, time, and place of the speech, and the context within which it was made, support this assertion— Acevedo did not release the memo to the public, but sent it to a private and select group of law enforcement and supervisory offi- cials. See Belyeu, 998 F.2d at 928. Consequently, we cannot say that Acevedo’s private whistleblower memo, which of itself could only have interfered with the defendant Commissioners’ nonexistent authority over the Police Departm