‘She deserves every dollar’: Spike praises fired SPD employee after $875K vaccine mandate settlement

Marina Shinderuk, who was terminated from the Seattle Police Department (SPD) after her 14-year career, has secured a $875,000 settlement from the City of Seattle for her refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

KIRO host Spike O’Neill commended Shinderuk for her determination.

“She tried every possible way to give them a workable solution to maintain in the department, and they just said ‘No thanks,'” Spike said on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “I don’t know if they were trying to make an example out of her as a supervisor, saying, ‘You’re either going to go by the rules, or you’re gone,’ but I think that has a lot to do with why she won the settlement. She deserves every dollar.”

Fired SPD employee claims she wasn’t given accommodations

The City of Seattle provided accommodations for unvaccinated individuals during that time, including social distancing, masks, and routine testing. Shinderuk claimed that she was not allowed these accommodations, which ultimately led to her termination.

“She’s a single mother with three kids, and COVID rolls around. She applies for and receives a religious exemption, then shortly after, they’re not honoring the exemption,” KIRO host Jake Skorheim said. “Unceremoniously, she gets fired, jobs gone after 14 years.”

Shinderuk offered a variety of arrangements she could make for her employer in place of receiving the vaccine, including remote work, relocation, and enhanced safety protocols.

“She was bending over backwards to try and accommodate what she believed was important to her employers,” Jake said. “She wants to keep her job, but also needs to make sure she can support her family. She smartly lawyered up and decided to sue.”

Shinderuk began her career as a telecommunicator and was promoted to police communications supervisor in 2019. She was later terminated from her position in 2021 for her refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

“A 14-year veteran who has dedicated her skill sets to making sure this city is a safe place to live,” Spike said. “A poster woman for how you want a civil employee to be and behave.”

Shinderuk’s attorney dubbed the settlement a “big win for the citizens of Washington State,” according to KOMO News. Her attorney also cited the City of Seattle’s failure to accommodate her religious exemption as grounds for the settlement.

“I wonder how much she was originally suing for. It’s a settlement, and that’s always a business decision. She doesn’t want to keep fighting it,” Jake said. “Maybe she was going for $2 million, but they settled and she got paid, which is great.”

The World Health Organization reported a cumulative total of more than 7 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide, and more than 1.2 million inside the United States as of this reporting.

“This is a mixed bag for me, because I felt that the state had a right to mandate these requirements for employment,” Spike said. “In hindsight, they were trying to make the best of an unknown situation that was evolving in horrific directions. We forget how horrific it was back then, and states were making decisions based on the most informed science at the time.”

Listen to the full conversation below.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.