Westbrook Police Chief Paul McCarthy announced on Monday that he will retire this summer, ending a nearly 35-year career with the Westbrook Police Department.
McCarthy, whose last day on the job will be July 27, said he felt the time was right for him to retire from his $72,000 per year job, citing the new Public Safety Building, which was opened in 2004 as a benchmark.
“I talked to my family and said that once the Public Safety Building was done, I would retire,” he said. “I’ve pushed a little further than that and I think the organization is in a good place right now where my departure would not create undo chaos and problems.”
“I’ll miss all the folks here,” McCarthy added. “I really enjoy them.”
Mayor Bruce Chuluda said Westbrook would miss McCarthy. “It’s certainly going to be a loss to the city,” said Chuluda. “I certainly wish him the very best.”
Sitting in his office in the Public Safety Building, McCarthy said he is especially proud of his part in getting a state-of-the-art building for the city’s police, fire, rescue and dispatch departments.
“I think this facility is one of the most tangible and biggest highlights of my career,” he said. “Finally getting a facility that is not a hand-me-down. It has worked extremely well.”
McCarthy joined the force in September 1972 as a patrolman, and in the following eight years, he also served as an evidence technician and on the detective bureau for a brief time.
It was during that time that McCarthy said he had what he deemed one of the most dramatic events of his career. In about 1979, McCarthy said, he disarmed a suspect by force.
“He had a gun and he was pointing it at two individuals,” recalled McCarthy. “The scene was chaos.”
After trying without success to control the situation by commanding the suspect to put down his gun, McCarthy said, he was forced to rush the suspect in an effort to get the gun away from him. At that point, he said, the situation went from dangerous to potentially lethal.
As McCarthy rushed the suspect to wrest the gun away from him, the two men the suspect was holding at gunpoint also rushed into the fight.
“There were four of us rolling around for a very long time trying to get hold of the gun,” McCarthy remembered. “It was a very dangerous situation.
McCarthy said he eventually managed to get hold of the weapon, and no one was hurt.
Soon after that, McCarthy was promoted to patrol sergeant, serving in that position from 1980 to 1984, a time that he remembers as one of the highlights of his long career.
“My most enjoyable days were when I was a patrol sergeant,” McCarthy said. “You could see the effects of what you did on a day-to-day basis.”
In 1984, McCarthy was promoted to deputy chief, a post he held until 1996, when he retired for the first time. That retirement was a brief one, as he was immediately rehired. McCarthy said the quick retirement was a way for him to begin to collect his pension as a way to help pay his children’s college tuitions.
In 2002, with the departure of former Chief Steven Roberts, McCarthy stepped in as acting chief. In August 2003, McCarthy was tapped by then-Mayor Don Esty for the chief’s job, but those plans hit a snag.
Three members of the city council, including Chuluda and current Councilor John O’Hara, opposed McCarthy’s nomination as chief. At the time, Chuluda said he felt the city should have sought an outside candidate to run the department.
McCarthy, who brought his family to the meeting expecting to be confirmed as chief, said he was surprised when the council declined to approve his appointment.
“That was stressful for me and my family,” McCarthy said. “That was very embarrassing and it was a low point for me. What should have been the achievement of my highest goal and desire turned out to be, if you take it personally, a slap in the face, if you take it pragmatically, a hornet’s nest of politics.”
The decision to block McCarthy’s appointment became a controversial one in the city, with members of the police union and the public rallying in his support. Two weeks after the initial vote, about 100 people packed the council chambers to urge the council to support McCarthy’s nomination. After an executive session, the council voted unanimously to approve McCarthy as the city’s police chief.
“The community really rose to my defense and supported me incredibly,” McCarthy said. “I think most people felt it was unconscionable to treat me and my family that way and they responded with tremendous support and the union responded with tremendous support.”
However, instead of celebrating with all of his supporters when the ordeal was finally over, McCarthy was thousands of miles away from Westbrook when his nomination was confirmed. He had taken a previously planned vacation to Ireland with his wife. “I was in a pub in Killarney when I got the news,” he said. “So we toasted my good fortune there.”
Speaking on Tuesday, Chuluda said he didn’t have a problem with McCarthy’s nomination as chief, but he did have a problem with the way the previous administration conducted the search.
“It wasn’t so much that I had an issue with Paul McCarthy, I didn’t know who the other candidates were,” said Chuluda. “Going forward, I’ve been able to work with Chief McCarthy and together we’ve tried to make the Westbrook Police Department the best police department in the state of Maine.”
McCarthy agrees that the Westbrook force has made strides during his time as chief, pointing to increased technology helping to make officers’ jobs easier and safer.
Over the years, McCarthy said, he has also seen a distinct change in police work. “We focus a lot more on liability than we used to,” he said.
Additionally, McCarthy said, there is more crime now than when he first started out, and the use of weapons has increased, as well. He blames a lot of that on drugs. “Really, drugs have controlled the boards, so to speak,” he said. “We see drugs almost every day.”
Drugs were not as prevalent when McCarthy started as a patrolman in the early 1970s. However, as the 1980s began, McCarthy said, police here began to see a steady increase in drug use and the resultant increase in crime, especially thefts and burglaries. Now, he said, it is not uncommon to a secondary charge of drug possession or possession of drug paraphernalia with any arrest.
As he readies for retirement, the 59-year-old McCarthy said he doesn’t know what his future holds, but he said he does plan to continue working somewhere.
As for his replacement, McCarthy said, he hasn’t thought about a successor, adding that decision is out of his hands. “There is no way to predict what the politicians are going to do,” he said.
Chuluda said he plans on beginning the search for a new chief quickly, and he also wants to take the opportunity to look at possible changes to the position, though he had no specifics on any potential changes.
“I will look at all the options on how we fill that position and how we structure that position,” he said.
No matter what the future holds for him, McCarthy said, he would always look fondly on his time with the Westbrook force. “You don’t stay in a job for 35 years if you don’t really love it,” he said. “And I have loved serving this community all that time.”
McCarthy said while he is proud of what he has accomplished as leader of the department, at his core, he is still the patrolman that he began his career as all those years ago.
“My first love was in patrol and the fact is that my greatest times were as a patrol sergeant,” he said. “That’s where my heart is. Every time I hear a siren, I want to jump into harness and go.”
Westbrook Police Chief Paul McCarthy has announced his retirement after nearly 35 years on the force. McCarthy’s last day will be July 27.Send questions/comments to the editors.
