Richard Pisoni, Darren Lindsey, and Mark Cameron worked for the Illinois State Police as members of its SWAT team. At the time of the incidents, all were over 40 and had worked in this division since at least 1999. Beginning in 2010, Trooper Charles Tolbert began to harass the older members of the SWAT team by isolating and criticizing them. Those younger team members who chose not to join Tolbert were ostracized. Cameron raised this issue with his boss Kollins on several occasions, and he said that he would take care of it. Later, during the debriefing of a problem during a training exercise, the team ignored the violation and instead the younger members complained that "Pisoni was overwhelmed and needed to leave the team." Complaints were made regularly to remove Tolbert from the group because of his actions but no action was taken. Additional comments were heard being made by the younger members of the SWAT team including "old need to go" and that they wanted to make the SWAT team a "younger, quicker team" and a "younger, more athletic team." Eventually, the three older team members transferred from their positions with the SWAT team to positions with lower