Boston cop who used to stand outside the mayor's house yelling about Covid-19 sues over her firing, says it violated her free-speech and religious rights

Shana Cottone, fired as a Boston Police sergeant in 2023, this week sued to get her job back, charging she was terminated as retaliation for exercising her First Amendment religious and free-speech rights by refusing Covid-19 shots and then organizing protests against city Covid-19 policies, which included early morning, bullhorn-enhanced protests outside Mayor Wu's Roslindale home and the swarming of two Boston pizzerias by people who refused to show proof of vaccination.

In her suit, filed in US District Court in Boston on Wednesday, Cottone says she had a First Amendment right to refuse shots because of "firmly held religious beliefs," and a First Amendment right to protest city policies that required employee shots and that prohibited, for a two-month period, people from entering locations where the public might gather without showing proof of vaccination.

Police Commissioner Michael Cox's decision to fire her in March, 2023, was blatant retaliation for her exercising those rights, specifically for the complaint she filed on Jan. 2, 2022 with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination over the city's refusal to grant her a religious exemption for the shot, she alleges. Part of her proof: The fact that "dozens" of other BPD officers who have done far worse things "only received a slap on the wrist" for their violations of department policies and the law.

Cottone is represented in this case, her second against the city over Covid-19, by Mark Gagliardi of Providence.

Gagliardi also represents fellow vaccine denier Joseph Abasciano, who was fired as a BPD officer the same day as Cottone and who is also suing the city, both over his refusal to get shots and tweets he posted supporting the failed Jan. 6 coup. He recently won a moral victory when the state Civil Service Commission rescinded his firing, saying he had a right as a private citizen to offer his opinions while off duty.

In her complaint, Cottone says she grew concerned about then mayoral candidate Michelle Wu when Wu called for requiring city employees to get vaccinated against Covid-19, and that after Wu was elected, organized a group called Boston First Responders United to help city workers file for exemptions to the shots and to protest against the policy.

Cottone alleges that her supervisor at District E-5 in West Roxbury, Capt. Darrin Greeley, took umbrage to that and the "No vax mandate, no vax passport" she had scrawled on her personal car and derided her in front of other officers as being "stupid for not taking the vaccine" - "or words to that effect" - several times.

Cottone claims that after the city council passed an ordinance prohibiting early morning protests, she was the only protester outside the mayor's house to be criminally charged - in a case that was later dismissed. Part of the case against her was that she used a bullhorn - in her complaint, she alleges that "no police officer ever witnessed her using a bull horn," only that somebody had "heard a voice" that sounded like hers.

Her complaint says that no BPD or city employees or members of the public "ever complained to the BPD or the City of Boston about Cottone's position against the Covid 19 vaccine mandate" and that she had a First Amendment right to speak out against it.

While speaking and protesting against the Covid 19 vaccine mandate as a private person outside of the workplace, Cottone did not identify herself as an employee of the City of Boston.

While speaking and protesting against the Covid 19 vaccine mandate as a private person outside of the workplace, Cottone did not reference any matters pertaining to her position as a police officer, the BPD or the City of Boston.

The complaint continues:

Because there were no complaints by any police officers, City of Boston employees or members of the public about Cottone's position against the Covid-19 mandate in which Cotton commented upon matters of public concern, the efficiency of the public services the City of Boston performs through te BPD - preventing crime, protecting and serving the community, and upholding the laws of the city, state, and country - was not disrupted in any way.

And what Wu allowed Cox to do was so egregious and obviously unconstitutional, a judge must let Cottone sue her individually, none of this sovereign immunity nonsense should be permitted, the complaint states.

The complaint is at odds with the BPD "findings of fact" used by Cox to fire her.

That report, written by BPD Deputy Supt. Richard Dahill, found that Cottone had violated department policies while both on and off duty in several cases, including allegedly abandoning her post as E-5 patrol supervisor on Dec. 23, 2021 to attend a roll call at District B-3 at which Wu was to speak - and then continued to record the roll call on her phone even after commanding officers told her to stop, at one point putting her phone in her pocket, but with the camera lens still poking out.

That incident, Dahill's report states, was two days after Cottone, in charge of assigning officers to various tasks at E-5, refused at roll call to order anybody to stand watch outside the mayor's house - standard policy since at least the Menino era - stating Wu "does not want us there." Then, after roll call, she angrily demanded Greeley tell her why BPD should do anything for a mayor who "was harming officers through the COVID-19 mandate," Dahill wrote.

As for the protests outside the mayor's house, Cottone "was observed on two occasions to be utilizing a bullhorn to loudly shout remarks in the direction of the Mayor's house at a volume that could be heard at a distance of 100 feet," and that on one of those occasions, Cottone "was observed entering her personal vehicle and proceeding to follow the Mayor's vehicle while yelling chants through a noise amplification device."

The report also found Cottone violated numerous department policies for her conduct towards other officers, the public, and the law in two incidents on Jan. 15, 2022, when an off-duty Cottone and a group of other anti-vaxxers caused disruptions at Penguin Pizza on Mission Hill and Regina Pizzeria in the Fenway by demanding service, refusing to show proof of vaccination and then refusing to leave.

Both incidents ended with Cottone arguing with and deriding the on-duty officers the restaurants called to have them removed, including calling some of the officers "Nazis" and "followers," telling one he was a disgrace to his uniform and, at one point, telling on-duty officers at Penguin Pizza that they were "dismissed." She also allegedly insulted pizzeria workers who told her she had to leave, Dahill wrote.

This is the second time Cottone has sued Boston.

In 2021, she joined with several other people to sue over the city's indoor vaccination-proof requirement, citing her treatment at the pizza places. In 2023, a federal judge dismissed the case, not because it was moot, since the city rescinded the policy after a couple of months, but because neither Cottone nor any of the other plaintiffs had legal grounds to bring it:

The embarrassment and distress Cottone suffered at the pizza establishments are not tied to any action taken by Defendants. Neither are the consequences Officer Cottone suffered as a result of actions undertaken independently by the Boston Police Department.