What made Milwaukee famous once made a loser out of State Police Capt. Thomas McCarthy.
Back in 2011, he was a Miller High Life drinker, according to police reports when he was arrested in Essex County for drunk driving.
But McCarthy can afford a better brew now, much better, with the $584,072 he made last year at the State Police’s F Troop at Logan Airport.
The headlines in the paper yesterday mentioned how McCarthy “blasts” past the State Police OT records, and “smashes OT ceiling.”
Smashed, blasted – these seem like appropriate verbs to describe McCarthy, considering his squalid quarter-century-plus as a state trooper.
Somewhere, suspended Trooper Michael Proctor must be speed-dialing his lawyer before his upcoming “disciplinary” hearing, yelling, “If this bum doesn’t get fired, why me?”
Let us return to a boozy Saturday night back in 2011. According to Saugus police reports, McCarthy was in his unmarked MSP Crown Vic on Saville Street in Saugus when a town cop smelled him reeking of alcohol. The local cop told McCarthy to turn off his engine.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” McCarthy snarled. “I’m outta here.”
Three cruisers trailed him as he unlawfully sped off, blew through a stop sign, crossed the yellow line “numerous times” and finally swerved onto Route 1.
As the OJ-like chase continued, McCarthy veered into the Square One Mall and skidded to a stop in what was then the Sears parking lot.
The Saugus cops again yelled at the future $584,072-a-year World’s Highest Paid State Trooper to turn off the unmarked vehicle and toss out the keys, but he refused. Finally he complied, staggered out of his Crown Vic and was told he was under arrest.
“Are you kidding me?” he repeated. According to the report, he “resisted” being handcuffed. A search of his MSP vehicle uncovered a gun, an empty Miller and two full containers of the Champagne of Bottled Beers.
Naturally, McCarthy was not given either a Breathalyzer or field sobriety test because… professional courtesy. A State Police supervisor called to the Saugus PD reported seeing signs of “intoxication” – two colloquialisms for which are “blasted” and “smashed.”
The next Tuesday, The World’s Highest Paid State Trooper was no-show at his own arraignment on drunk-driving charges. He was reported to be in a “facility” – in Florida. Because that’s where the staties always go when they get a bad ice cube, to that sunny place for shady people. Just ask “the Foxboro Flasher.”
As corrupt as the State Police are, even they were appalled by McCarthy not even pretending to care about his OUI.
“The department is disappointed he saw fit not to show up at his arraignment,” the MSP flack said. “Every person who gets arrested has to. Why he thinks he is any different is a mystery.”
Not really. The World’s Highest Paid State Trooper knew then, and knows even better now that’s a millionaire. He’s a state cop, and he can do whatever he damn well pleases, while still making $584,072 a year.
McCarthy got a hack judge to give him a continued without a finding – a CWOF. He was suspended for a year and now makes, I repeat, $584,072 a year.
Death, where is thy sting?
As Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “There comes a night/When the best get tight.” But this was not a one-off for The World’s Highest Paid State Trooper.
In 2005, according to the State Police, after another disciplinary incident, he “forfeited 30 days.”
In 2002, according to a Channel 25 report in 2014, The World’s Highest Paid State Trooper “crashed into another motorist at 4 a.m. in Reading. The other driver and his passenger both needed to be taken to the hospital.
“A witness tells State Police he saw McCarthy possibly throwing beer cans out of his car and ‘was possibly operating under the influence of alcohol,’ records show.
“The driver hit by McCarthy was later told that McCarthy ran from the scene. But the Reading police report doesn’t even mention McCarthy’s name.”
A sergeant picked the tosspot trooper up at the accident scene and drove him to the barracks in Andover. She said she “observed no characteristic of alcohol intake.”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Think about this: If you as a civilian got lugged for driving under, after being chased by three cruisers, do you think you’d get a pass on blowing in the bag, or on the Sidewalk Olympics (as in Saugus)? Would your name be excised from the incident report (as in Reading)?
And would you now be making $584,072 a year… in the exact same job?
But wait, there’s more, according to Ch. 25, which got a look at his personnel file after a two-year struggle over public records concerning the disciplinary proceedings against corrupt cops.
In 2000, a motorist stopped by The World’s Highest Paid State Trooper complained that he had “alcohol on his breath.” The State Police “investigated” and decided that the allegation was “false.”
Of course it was! Wink wink nudge nudge.
In the 2014 story about the personnel records of dodgy dipso staties, Ch. 25 referred to McCarthy as a “former captain.” Now he’s a captain again. He was demoted after the Saugus incident, then took the promotional exams to become captain again.
For the record, last year McCarthy’s base pay was $224,007.22. He pocketed $349,815.27 in overtime. He grabbed another $10,250 in “other” pay.
Total: $584,072.
To coin a phrase, “You’ve got to be kidding me! I’m outta here.”