State says female Bridgewater police officer should be promoted, receive back pay

A state agency determined that a female police officer in Bridgewater was unlawfully passed over for promotion and should ascend to a lieutenant position with nearly two years of back pay.

As the NBC10 Boston Investigators first reported last year, Kelly Chuilli accused the police chief of discrimination and retaliation during the department's promotional process.

After challenging the decision before the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission, the agency ruled that Chuilli was unlawfully bypassed and should receive back pay from July 2023.

"I feel somewhat vindicated," Chuilli told NBC10 Boston. "I thought I would want to celebrate more, but it took so much to get here. And at every turn, I was just fought tooth and nail."

Chuilli, a combat veteran with a 25-year career at the Bridgewater Police Department, said a supervisor asked her to sign up to take the promotional exam in 2023, but not to take it. According to Chuilli, the supervisor said he would pay for the test.

Chuilli declined the request to skip the test and records show she had the highest score for both the lieutenant and captain positions.

In the next phase of the promotional process, a panel of local police chiefs also recommended Chuilli as the top candidate.

However, Bridgewater Police Chief Christopher Delmonte had the final say in the process, and he promoted a different officer.

Following the decision, the police sergeant said she was stripped of her duties supervising a team of detectives, and reassigned to a patrol shift.

"It was like I was being sent a message," Chuilli told us last year. "It felt exactly like retaliation."

Chuilli took her case to the Civil Service Commission. After examining evidence and listening to testimony, Commissioner Paul Stein sided with the Bridgewater officer.

"It is not disputed that the Appellant was unlawfully bypassed and the overwhelming evidence shows that, but for a deeply flawed process, the Appellant should have been promoted to BPD police lieutenant in July 2023," Stein wrote in his decision.

Allison MacLellan is the attorney representing Chuilli in her legal battle. The police officer also has a pending discrimination lawsuit in Plymouth Superior Court.

"For them to treat her this way is disgraceful," MacLellan said. "Kelly Chuilli is the epitome of a woman that has to work three times as hard to try to get the same treatment as her male counterparts."

NBC10 Boston

NBC10 Boston

Chief Delmonte told NBC10 Boston the town is appealing the decision.

Along with the promotion of Chuilli, the decision also stipulates that the officer who was promoted to lieutenant in 2023 should be moved to a "temporary" status.

The Civil Service Commission plans to conduct a separate investigation into allegations of rigging the promotional process and asking people to sign up for tests without taking them.

Delmonte said he could not discuss specifics of Chuilli's situation, but he did defend the promotional system he has overseen as police chief for the past 15 years.

"We work very hard to get promotional decisions right," Delmonte said. "It's important to the department, it's important to the community, to get those decisions right. So we work very hard to do that, and I think the process is fair, and it's very thorough."

Since speaking publicly with NBC10 Boston, Chuilli said she has heard from other female officers around the state with similar experiences or to offer their support.

With a daughter now beginning a career in law enforcement, the new police lieutenant said as difficult as it was to speak up, she would do it again.

"This needed to be put under a spotlight," Chuilli said. "If you let it go, you're part of the problem."