Christopher Dolan was a respected Massachusetts state trooper for years — until COVID-19 hit and his bosses declared him a threat to public health.
Dolan served with the Massachusetts State Police (MSP) for more than two decades starting as an intern in 1995, eventually earning local and federal awards for helping to solve cold case murders. His father and uncle were also cops, and he knew he wanted to become one himself when his uncle was killed by a bomb from a car in 1991 while investigating two men plotting a murder.
“That’s when I wanted to become a cop,” he told the Daily Caller News Foundation, adding that many colleagues also decided from a young age. “So, a lot of these guys, it’s like, they grew up as kids — ‘I don’t want to be anything but a Mass state trooper.’”
In a Jan. 6, 2022, virtual hearing, Dolan faced a camera with a sullen expression as the agency he devoted his life to accused him of “unsatisfactory performance” and “insubordination” for refusing the COVID vaccine. The MSP had just taken him through several internal hearings after denying him a religious exemption to former Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s August 2021 mandate for executive branch workers, footage and records obtained by the DCNF show.
“Do you wish to resign prior to the commencement of another personnel investigation?” Detective Captain Daniel Tucker, wearing a COVID mask improperly below his mouth, asked Dolan at the hearing.
“Absolutely not, sir,” said Dolan, referred to in hearings as “the accused.”
Dolan remained suspended without pay while fighting legal battles until 2023, when he and other troopers won an arbitration ruling that reinstated them with back pay. Throughout the ordeal, he and his wife had to sell their house and his career had the black mark of four “internal affairs” investigations solely over the vaccine issue, he said.
Dolan and around 30 others, a mix of former uniformed and civilian employees, have since been in a long court battle demanding damages or reinstatement from the MSP over its vaccination crackdown. Their stories reflect how COVID vaccine mandates across the public and private sector pushed countless workers out of their jobs.
Dolan was nine days from retirement when he was suspended, but he made up his mind, he said. “I was not getting the shot, come hell or high water. Essentially, they would have had to come to my house and pin me down and put that shot in my arm for me to get that shot.”
Those suing the MSP are a small portion of more than 150 agency employees who were denied exemptions after interviews where they had to demonstrate sincere religious views, said Dolan, who is now retired. Those who took issue with the mandate went down varying paths, from enduring the same hearing process as Dolan to working elsewhere to giving up and taking the shot, he told the DCNF. Gallup polling in August 2021 showed 38% of U.S. workers opposing such mandates from employers.
Obama-appointed U.S. Judge Leo Sorokin ruled in favor of the MSP in March and April while allowing three civilian employees’ civil rights claims to proceed, court records show.
Dolan and the remaining plaintiffs are strategizing for an appeal, he told the DCNF.
The MSP declined to comment to the DCNF, citing “pending litigation.”
‘We’ve Been Excluded’
Dolan, like others, told the MSP that they could not take the COVID vaccine knowing that it may be partially made from aborted fetal cell lines due to their religious views against abortion. Dolan also told MSP interviewers that taking the vaccine would be “idolatry” from a Christian standpoint, he told the DCNF.
As a Catholic, former state trooper Samantha Cila refused the vaccine for the same two reasons and worried about how it could affect a pregnancy, according to her court filings and comments to the DCNF. She first submitted to an interview in 2021 designed to assess whether her religious views were sincere. While troopers like Dolan passed that stage, MSP staffers determined Cila had “a personal philosophy” rather than authentic religious beliefs.
“One was an attorney and one was a captain who has now been promoted to major, both males,” Cila told the DCNF. “So obviously, they didn’t understand my thought process on being a woman and carrying a child.”
Among today’s MSP graduates is Trooper Samantha Cila, daughter of Trooper Vincent Cila, who was killed in the line of duty in 2005. Trooper Cila was pinned — with the same badge number her father wore — by her mother and sister. Her classmates chose her to carry the class flag. pic.twitter.com/NG48tMWs4c
Should police officers be exempt from COVID vaccine mandates based on religious beliefs?— Massachusetts State Police (@MassStatePolice) June 27, 2019
Cila was inspired to follow in her father’s footsteps as a state trooper after he died on-duty in a 2005 motorcycle crash while patrolling Boston. The MSP celebrated her leaving its training academy in 2019 with social media posts, telling a sentimental story for local media of her receiving her father’s badge number.
By November 2021, MSP officers were pulling up to her house in cruisers to take the badge, her vehicle with her father’s number, her identification and her gun. Family members and law enforcement colleagues stood facing the officers in her yard to show support, she said.
“The captain that took all of that from me was the same captain who had brought flowers to my mom on my dad’s death anniversary for the last 2 years,” Cila said.
“It just felt like part of me and part of him was, like, being ripped away from me,” she said of her father.
Like Dolan, Cila faced “insubordination” and “unsatisfactory performance” charges and trial board hearings for refusing vaccination, she said. She was dishonorably discharged from the MSP in April 2022, and for the first time in her memory, no uniformed officer brought her family flowers at the anniversary of her father’s death the following July, she told the DCNF.
“I would definitely feel that if we haven’t been forgotten about, it definitely feels like we’ve been excluded,” Cila said.
‘Risks To The Public’
Judge Sorokin agreed with many of the MSP’s claims in his March ruling. Letting troopers conduct “their in-person, public-facing duties while unvaccinated would have posed health and safety risks to the public,” while reassigning such duties would impose “undue hardship,” he wrote.
Plaintiffs also failed to show that MSP did not rely on “existing medical evidence” for its policy, Sorokin ruled. He also denied that the hearing process was unfair.
Cila, who started working for the Middleton Police Department in August 2022, called it “astonishing” that she could perform the very functions locally that Baker’s administration deemed dangerous for state workers. Democratic Gov. Maura Healey rescinded Baker’s mandate in March 2023 once 99% of the executive branch complied.
Nationwide pressure to get vaccinated affected Dolan’s household beyond his career, he told the DCNF. Dolan described coming home to his crying wife in 2021 after MSP’s mandate came down. She had already lost her job at a local hospital for refusing the vaccine and knew he might lose his despite being inches from retirement, he said.
“‘If you tell me right now that this is the way to go, that you want me to get the shots from you, you’re the only one that I would do it for,’” Dolan described telling her. “‘However, you’re not going to want to live with a man who does because I won’t be able to live with myself.’”
“So, from that time point, she was like gold,” Dolan said. “She was like, ‘Nope, I’m with you.’”
MSP’s public health threat narrative never made sense to Dolan, especially since he testified in three homicide trials in open court while suspended, he told the DCNF.
“No masking, no social distancing, no nothing, unvaccinated, dirty, nasty creature, right?” Dolan said with a chuckle. “If that shows you anything.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect former Gov. Baker’s political party. We regret any confusion.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
