A Connecticut state police trooper has filed a federal lawsuit against eight individuals and the department that oversees the state police, alleging they retaliated by initiating sham investigations against him after he spoke out publicly against alleged unauthorized DNA collections.

The parties resolved Christopher Burns’ lawsuit against the Connecticut Department of Public Safety over the alleged unauthorized DNA collections in April 2015. According to news reports, Burns accused his superiors of telling him and other state police detectives that they had to give their own DNA samples, or they might not be allowed at crime scenes. State police wanted the samples so that unknown DNA found at crime scenes could be identified, according to reports.