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Fired Boston police officer awarded $1 million after alleging sexual harassment

Enxhi Qirici alleged colleagues commented about wanting to sleep with her and speculated about whether she was pregnant.

A flag outside Boston Police Department headquarters. Craig F. Walker/Boston Globe Staff

November 25, 2025

2 minutes to read

A fired Boston police officer was awarded $1 million in damages earlier this month after she sued the department and alleged a hostile work environment where other officers would comment openly about her sex life and interracial relationship.

The Suffolk County jury did not, however, find that Enxhi Qirici was fired in 2019 due to sex- or race-based discrimination, or retaliation. With interest, her total judgment rises to more than $1.5 million.

An Albanian immigrant, Qirici sued the Boston Police Department in 2021 and alleged she faced lewd jokes and sexual harassment after she began dating a Black co-worker in the spring of 2018.

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Qirici, who was only a month out of the Boston Police Academy at the time, said her sex life quickly became a topic of discussion at the station, where colleagues would purportedly comment about wanting to sleep with her and speculate about whether she was pregnant.

She was ultimately fired during her yearlong probationary period and contested her termination, accusing the Boston Police Department of discrimination and retaliation. Meanwhile, the agency’s lawyers contend Qirici’s job performance was simply unsatisfactory.

“I want you to ask yourselves if she is someone you want serving as law enforcement in your community,” attorney Bridget Davidson told jurors during Qirici’s trial, according to The Boston Globe.

In court filings, Boston police pointed specifically to two incidents during which Qirici allegedly lost control of her emotions while interacting with officers from other law enforcement agencies. The first occurred in July 2018, when she visited the officer she was dating, Eliot Telisnor, at his paid detail near Northeastern University. Qirici allegedly exchanged heated words with a Northeastern police officer over how she parked her cruiser, lobbing profanity at him during the testy exchange.

A month later, she and Telisnor drove to Logan Airport on personal business during a break from another paid detail. While there, she purportedly became emotional and cried in a bathroom following an interaction with a Massachusetts State Police trooper.

The Boston Police Department placed her on desk duty soon after, meaning she was not permitted to carry a firearm or work details. By then, she says she was “subjected to comments and speculation on a daily basis about why she had been assigned to the office and why she was not allowed to carry a weapon.”

According to Qirici’s lawsuit, “the office was rife with scurrilous, sexist, and racist remarks that were openly expressed and tolerated by superior officers.”

She filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in early March 2019 and was fired nearly three weeks later. For its part, the Boston Police Department maintains its decision to fire Qirici predated her MCAD complaint.

“This case is about fairness and equality,” her attorney, Ilir Kavaja, said during the civil trial, per the Globe.

Qirici has since gone to law school and now works as an attorney.