Durham sheriff sued over requiring deputies to be vaccinated

AnnMarie Breen, the spokeswoman for the Durham County Sheriff's Office, said the agency doesn't discuss pending litigation, nor would it release any personnel-related information beyond someone's employment history.

Neve said he worked for the sheriff's office for five years as a school resource officer and a patrol officer before being terminated in late March. His firing came about two months after Birkhead issued a memo to all agency employees that getting vaccinated would be required to stay on the job.

"Getting vaccinated now will help protect you and the public we serve," the lawsuit quotes the memo as stating. "I am requiring all employees to be vaccinated. It is mandatory."

Neve wasn't interested in getting vaccinated, according to the lawsuit, because he questioned the safety of the vaccines.

"[T]hese vaccines are not free from risk. In the clinical trials, which are still underway, there were serious adverse events documented following vaccination found by the trial investigators to not only be 'linked' to the vaccines, but in fact related to the vaccines," the lawsuit states.

Birkhead continued to pressure Neve and other unvaccinated deputies in February and March, telling them that the vaccine had been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to the lawsuit. He required from them either proof of vaccination or a doctor's note explaining that someone couldn't get the shot for medical reasons.

None of the three available vaccines has been formally approved by the FDA, and all are being administered under emergency authorization. Federal law requires that people be given the option to refuse such "experimental" medical products after being informed of the risks.

Neve refused to share his personal medical information with the sheriff, and he was put on leave March 12 and fired two weeks later. Since then, according to the lawsuit, he has suffered anxiety, depression and financial stress.

are doing so openly, without any regard for the personal medical decisions of their employees. Worse still, defendants are attempting to justify their policy to their employees by using false and misleading information."