Los Angeles Fire Department veteran firefighter John Knox was dismissed last month after several years of resistance to the city vaccine mandate. In an exclusive interview with The Sentinel, he discussed the legal battles which fellow firefighters are waging to protect their rights from unconstitutional mandates and to ensure accountability for those who abused their power.

Knox and his colleagues heard rumors that they would be subjected to a vaccine mandate months before August 2021, when the city of Los Angeles informed employees that they would have to “vaccinate or face termination.” Knox was placed on unpaid leave after continuing to resist the mandate and was fired on the final day of his November 2023 board of rights hearing.

“We are going to continue this fight as long as we can,” Knox remarked. “Everybody thinks that this is about a shot. And partly it started out with not wanting to take an experimental drug. But I should have the right to the government not telling me what I put into my body.”

Several firefighters started an entity called Firefighters for Freedom at the outset of the vaccine mandate to support their efforts to challenge the policy. Knox asserted to The Sentinel that city officials have violated the First Amendment by asking firefighters to submit religious exemptions, as well as violated clauses in the state Firefighters Bill of Rights which say that firefighters cannot be removed from their positions without due process.

Knox added that he intends to acquire his back pay and challenge his wrongful termination. “We have had individuals that have been placed off duty for criminal acts, egregious acts, and they have been paid the whole time and had their whole due process,” he commented.

Public health officials had claimed that unvaccinated employees were an “imminent threat to the public and the workforce,” Knox continued, adding that they believed vaccination was the only way to prevent transmission. “That is a pretty bold statement. You are basically saying that my immune system does not work, and only this magic medicine is going to fix everything.”

Knox predicted to The Sentinel that Los Angeles is a “beta testing ground” for future implementation of aggressive government overreach elsewhere in the country. Firefighters for Freedom has dealt with a legal system which Knox called a “five-dimensional chess board” and noted that their trial date is presently scheduled for February 2025. “They basically use attrition,” he commented. “I mean, they really try to wear you out, to get you to just give up so that they win, and then they can push their insanity out across the rest of the country.”

Knox desires to hold officials accountable due to the centrality of medical autonomy in guarding other core freedoms. “We are made in the image of God,” he continued. “But if you submit to this, and allow them to tell you what you can and cannot do with your body, there is nothing left on the planet that is free. That is really what this is about: fighting for our God-given rights to be free individuals and make choices for ourselves, and not be controlled slaves.”