Veteran NYPD cop claims COVID vaccine mandate targeted male, Christian officers

A veteran NYPD lieutenant turned podcaster claims the department refused to give Christian men exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate because a DEI commissioner wanted to put more women on the force.

John Macari, who co-hosts the “New York’s Finest: Retired & Unfiltered Podcast,” said he had to choose between his Christian faith and his job because of policies put forth by the city’s now disgraced COVID czar Jay Varma and former NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Equity and Inclusion, Tanya Meisenholder.

Meisenholder once said in a podcast that more than 10% of NYPD employees are “knuckle draggers,” which Macari claimed is a discriminatory term for men.

The former cop says he was forced to choose between his faith and his job. Paul Martinka

The two “were responsible for [Macari] being told that he either had to get vaccinated or be terminated. This was not done to female officers, trans-sexual officers, and those officers of no faith,” Macari alleged in a $10 million Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.

“Living as a devout and God-fearing Christian” kept him from being vaccinated, Macari contended in court papers.

Macari said he left the NYPD in February 2022 after 18 years on the job.

He “suffered severe emotional distress including anxiety and bouts of depression when he was forced to choose between violating the sanctity of his body and his soul through the illegal and forceful coercion … and staying on the job that he loved,” he said in the legal filing.

Meisenholder’s personal effort to increase the number of women in American police departments, known as the 30X30 Initiative, gave her “a strong interest in changing the accommodation process and keeping male police officers … out of work while granting female officers the same accommodation just to help foster her discriminatory results,” according to the lawsuit.

She left the NYPD in August 2023 after 16 years, and now serves as the Director of Gender Equity, Policing Project for New York University’s School of Law, according to LinkedIn.

Earlier this year Macari proclaimed department brass warned the rank-and-file not to listen to his show, which is often critical of the NYPD’s bureaucracy.

The NYPD declined comment on the lawsuit. Varma could not be reached. Meisenholder did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.