Why Should Delaware Care?
A highly publicized campaign by the Dover police union to oust the city’s police chief last summer raised questions about the structure of the department, and its function within city government. A Spotlight Delaware review of messages exchanged between key actors in the conflict indicates a friction underscoring the union’s claims and city leaders’ defense of the chief.
Messages exchanged last summer reveal an unwavering solidarity from Dover city leaders in support of Police Chief Thomas Johnson despite calls for his resignation and investigations into his behavior spurred by the local police union.
Thousands of pages of documents obtained by Spotlight Delaware via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request include communications between Mayor Robin Christiansen, Johnson and city council members. In those messages, city leaders staunchly defended Johnson’s leadership and strategized about how to address the union’s criticisms.
The messages also raise questions about the relationship between Johnson, city leaders and his own police officers amid an extended period of turmoil in Dover and scrutiny over the police department’s tactics.
What is not clear from the documents, however, is what prompted the Dover Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) – the local police union – to call for Johnson’s resignation last August. It also is unclear from the messages what, if any, negotiations between the FOP and city leaders led the officers to seemingly end their public campaign against Johnson.
Christiansen and City Council President Fred Neil, the two most vocal Johnson defenders, both declined Spotlight Delaware’s repeated requests for comment. Christiansen said his schedule was too busy for a meeting, and Neil cited the ongoing investigations into the situation as preventing him from commenting.
Johnson, however, said in an interview that he and the police union were working on their relationship. He said he believes the department is heading in a positive direction.
“I think I’m making progress with my relationship with my officers,” Johnson said. “I made the mistakes that I made. I could have done some things differently. I’m looking for us to move forward. I’m looking for us to be successful.”
Spotlight Delaware initially submitted a FOIA request for text messages and emails about the FOP-chief conflict in September 2025. Following roughly eight months of appeals, including a ruling by the Attorney General forcing Dover to turn over the documents, Spotlight Delaware obtained the thousands of pages of responsive records earlier this spring.
Backdrop of tension
Years of friction between Johnson and his officers led up to the Dover FOP publishing a letter in August 2025 announcing a 93% vote of no confidence in Johnson’s leadership.
The disagreements seemingly began when Johnson was sworn in as only the second-ever outside hire to run the police department in February 2020. The union wrote in a Facebook post last summer that the city’s decision to hire a chief from outside the department’s ranks was “not something our organization desired.”
Johnson said he did not want to comment on any tension about being hired from outside the department.
“All I can tell you is I submitted my resume when the position was available, and from the day Dover said yes, I’ve been trying to do the best that I can to serve the city, serve these officers,” he said.
Union leadership did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s multiple requests for comment about their campaign for Johnson’s removal and the unrest within the department.
In late 2022, union members filed a complaint with the city’s Human Resources department over Johnson’s alleged use of his police vehicle for non-work purposes, including traveling to his second job as an adjunct instructor at Penn State University, and to a family vacation in Fenwick Island.
FOP leadership described these issues in its resignation social media posts as evidence of Johnson “failing to connect with his officers,” and “allowing the morale of the Dover Police Department to reach an all-time low.”
The officers also said they did not receive any update on findings from the 2022 investigation.
Johnson said he does not know what the final outcome of the investigation was, as it was discussed during a 2023 city council closed-door session. The mayor subsequently told him “nothing had changed,” he said.
Dover City Attorney Dan Griffith said the terms of Johnson’s employment contract allowed him to use his city vehicle to get to his second job teaching at Penn State, so long as he re-filled the gas tank on “extended distance trips,” and worked full-time hours with the city of Dover.
Spotlight Delaware requested Johnson’s employment contract through FOIA. In response, the city provided a copy of Johnson’s employment offer letter. The document does not include the terms Griffith described.
Johnson said the city does not write employment contracts for its department heads.
After receiving his offer letter, Johnson said he was told to flesh out the specific terms of his employment with Christiansen.
He asked the mayor for a formal written contract, but Christiansen declined and said he would rather negotiate things as they came up through in-person and email conversations, Johnson added.
“I explained to the mayor what I needed to be successful in the role,” Johnson said. “He agreed with me, and I think you’ll find I’ve done everything that I’ve done with permission not forgiveness.”
As of 2025, Johnson was the highest paid city employee with an annual salary of $180,253, according to data from The News Journal.
Multiple investigations
In addition to the social media blitz calling for Johnson’s resignation last summer, the FOP put up billboards around Dover and Upper Darby, Pa. – where Johnson used to work – urging his removal. Officers also initiated multiple investigations into his behavior.
These investigations include an internal police department investigation and a criminal complaint filed with the state Department of Justice (DOJ) over the chief’s conduct.
The DOJ dismissed the criminal complaint in early February, and the city “considers the matter to be closed,” it wrote in a February press release.
The FOP also accused Christiansen and Johnson of telling them to focus their attacks on city council members Brian Lewis and Roy Sudler in an Aug. 26 social media post.
This claim led the Dover City Council to launch a third-party investigation by 21 Century Policing Solutions, a Washington D.C.-based consulting firm, last fall into Christiansen and Johnson’s conduct.
A copy of the contract between 21 Century Policing Solutions and the city of Dover indicates the investigation was going to cost $50,000. It was scheduled to be completed by January 2026.
One city council member told Spotlight Delaware they just received a copy of the final investigation report in recent weeks.
That report has not yet been publicly released, and the city denied a Spotlight Delaware FOIA request for a copy, citing exemptions for personnel files and pending investigations.
‘You are my chief‘
Top city leaders, including Christiansen and City Council President Fred Neil, staunchly defended Johnson’s behavior, both publicly and privately, throughout the FOP campaign to remove him.
Both Christiansen and Neil declined Spotlight Delaware’s requests for comment on the situation.
On Aug. 12, after the FOP took its no-confidence vote in the chief but before it released its public statement calling for his resignation, Christiansen wrote to Johnson telling him he was meeting with union leadership that same day.
“Standing fast,” Christiansen wrote. “You are my Chief.”
Johnson said he did not recall that specific meeting. He also declined to comment on the details of the discussions between himself, Christiansen and the police union.
In another text exchange between Christiansen and Johnson on June 22, roughly two months before the FOP’s public efforts to oust Johnson began, the mayor called out both the union and a newly launched, activist-led complaint form for residents to recount their experiences with the police department.
“Who is going to review the complaints against the thugs. Brian Lewis?” Christiansen wrote. “Where’s the FOP with perhaps an editorial or some PR of their own.”
Lewis, a Dover City Councilman, did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s request for comment.
Johnson responded in the message thread that he was going to talk to union leadership shortly. He told Christiansen he expected FOP leaders to attend the city council meeting the next day.
“I’m trying to figure out my communication plan,” Johnson wrote. “I don’t like sitting there looking stupid unless I know that someone is going to defend the department.”
Johnson told Spotlight Delaware he took issue with the activist initiative, set up by the group Neighbors Organized for Credibility and Accountability in Policing. He said the group was trying to “harvest complaints and not include us in the conversation about any complaint.”
He added that because the structure of city council meetings does not allow him to respond to public comments directed at the police department, his text message was an effort to ensure the mayor would defend the department against citizens’ criticism.
Email communications indicate that City Council President Fred Neil was also directly involved in coordinating the city’s defense against FOP criticisms.
Following up on a meeting the pair had to discuss the situation, Neil wrote in an email to Christiansen on Aug. 28, “I hope we can deescalate. No lynching will be allowed.”
Neil also wrote strongly worded defenses of Johnson’s leadership to a number of outside entities in August and September 2025, including the Association of Retired Dover Police Officers, the Central Delaware Chamber of Commerce and some community advocates.
“We need our officers to do what they were trained to do and swore to do, PROTECT the PUBLIC and not spend time on [sic] campaign on ghost problems or hurt feelings,” Neil wrote to the retired officers on Aug. 26, “Let me repeat, the police are under attack.”
Failed negotiation attempts
The FOP broke its nearly four year silence on social media in August 2025 with its letter calling for Johnson’s resignation. Over the next month and a half, the union made roughly two dozen posts with allegations against the chief, photos of yard signs calling for the chief’s removal, and responses to city officials’ defense of Johnson’s leadership.
The union unceremoniously stopped making update posts at the end of September, a couple weeks after the city council voted to launch a third-party investigation into the situation.
It is not clear whether the investigation led the officers to go silent on social media.
Following the Aug. 12 meeting between Christiansen and FOP leadership, which Christiansen referenced in a text message to Johnson, email communications indicate that future attempts at organizing a meeting between stakeholders in the conflict failed.
Christiansen wrote an email to Tim Mullaney, the FOP president, on Aug. 28, inviting officers to an open forum the following week.
The forum would have featured a moderator and been open to the public as “an opportunity to have a candid discussion” and “allow all parties to present their points,” Christiansen wrote.
Mullaney did not appear to respond via email to Christiansen’s invitation. Mullaney also did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s multiple requests for comment.
In a Sept. 2 statement expressing his “full confidence” in Johnson’s leadership, Christiansen wrote that he had invited FOP leadership to a public forum “where their concerns could be discussed openly,” but the union did not respond to his request.
The day after Christiansen’s open forum invitation, Neil wrote to Mullaney offering for union leadership to discuss their concerns with city officials during a city council executive session.
Mullaney declined that invitation, citing concerns that an executive session is confidential. He would not be allowed to discuss the meeting with other union members, he said. He did say the FOP was open to other avenues of expressing their concerns.
Despite Mullaney already having turned down the invitation, Neil wrote him an email the following day to “rescind the invitation.” He had misunderstood the rules of an executive session meeting, he said.
FOP and city leaders did not exchange any more emails about arranging a meeting. The officers continued calling for Johnson’s resignation for another month.
Johnson said he respects FOP members’ First Amendment rights, including the posts they made about him last summer. But he has “made a lot of progress” in his relationship with the union since then, he said.
“I generally care about the city, I generally care about my officers, and I think we’ve got a good future together,” Johnson said.
It remains unclear where the relationship between Johnson and his officers stands today. It is also unclear what, if any, new information was uncovered by the city’s third-party investigation into Johnson and Christiansen’s behavior.
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
