# STATE TROOPERS SUE STATE



## fscpd907 (Jun 5, 2003)

State troopers sue state
By David Weber and J.M. Lawrence / Boston Herald
Saturday, April 17, 2004

Four state troopers formerly assigned to the elite Air Wing helicopter unit sued their employer yesterday, saying they were transferred as punishment for blowing the whistle on violations within their division. 

"I want my job back. We spent a lot of time trying to get into the unit. We chose aviation as a career," Trooper Joseph Gura said after he and Troopers Shawn Campinha, Gale MacAulay and Jody Reilly, the latter two the first and only women pilots to ever fly for the state police, filed suit in Middlesex Superior Court against the Department of State Police and its commander, Col. Thomas Foley. 

Reilly said she was reassigned after she filed sexual harassment charges within her department and with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination against former Air Wing commander Lt. Michael Barry. 

"It is our belief that this situation needs to be brought to the attention of the public," attorney Timothy Burke said on behalf of the four troopers. 

Foley defended the transfers as necessary for safety, saying, "I am not going to fool around with the Air Wing." 

Burke said the troubles for MacAulay and Campinha began when they were cited for failing to use proper radio signals during takeoff and landing and for failing to secure the landing site near the state police barracks on Day Boulevard in South Boston. 

When MacAulay and Campinha complained that their alleged infractions were insignificant and then enumerated more serious mistakes made by other unit members, they were ostracized by their commander, they claim. Gura, as a union representative and fellow pilot in the unit, backed up their observations of more serious infractions by others during the departmental hearing. 

In a subsequent report by Capt. Michael Concannon, who replaced Barry as Air Wing commander after Reilly's sexual harassment complaints, the four troopers were approved for transfer because they were not "team players," Gura said.


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## Irish Wampanoag (Apr 6, 2003)

Trooper Gura was my defensive tactics instructor in the Academy back in 1996. He was the best DT instructor I have ever been trained by. He was a skinny guy but could knock you on your ass and handcuff you before you knew what happened.


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## luap112 (Jan 24, 2003)

Trooper Gura not a team *Player?*

I'm sorry. I worked for a little while with Tpr. Gura when I did an internship out at Camp New Braintree and he is one high speed individual. Like BHCC said he is all business when it comes to DT. So I really don't buy that he and the other troopers were removed because he wasn't a "team players"


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## mazz (Aug 5, 2002)

BHCCPD,

SSPO Class 4?


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## MVS (Jul 2, 2003)

Reading the article I say he was a TRUE team player. He stood by his teammates and defended them!! Good for him! Thats a TRUE team player, the TEAM sticks together!

TEAM = _*T*_ogether _*E*_veryone _*A*_chieves _*M*_ore


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