Crooked cops tarnish image of State Police
What would State Police Staff Sgt. Richard J. Clemens Jr. say about today’s shameful Massachusetts State Police scandal?
What would Norman Rockwell say?
We will never know because both men have passed: Clemens in 2012 at age 84 and Rockwell in 1978 at age 81. But we can get a pretty good idea from the famous 1958 Norman Rockwell painting of Clemens counseling a young runaway boy in a Pittsfield diner. The painting is called “The Runaway.” It is classic Rockwell. The painter/illustrator did it for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, which ran it Sept. 20, 1958. It was one of many covers Rockwell did for the national magazine, and probably the most popular. It was framed and hung in diners and police jurisdictions across the country, including offices of the state police. To execute the iconic painting, Rockwell got his Sturbridge neighbor Clemens, 29 years old at the time, to pose for him, along with 8yearold Eddie Locke, a local schoolboy.
Clemens served as a state police officer from 1953 to 1975, after which he became chief of security at the General Electric plant in Pittsfield. Upon Clemens’ death in 2012, Locke told the Boston Herald, “I think (Clemens) probably in more ways than one was really a great representative, certainly for the Massachusetts State Police, but also for police all over. He was a good cop and an even better man.” It is a given that the immortalized scene of the caring trooper giving solid advice — and perhaps lunch — to the runaway boy is an idyllic representation of police work. It is a cop helping a vulnerable boy who has run away from home. The trooper is telling him that he needs to return home, and the boy is apparently taking in the advice. Maybe the trooper is offering to drive the boy home. In any case, the trooper is providing fatherly comfort and security to the boy.
The image is wonderful. It is the way cops wanted to be presented, and it is the way people wanted them to look
— at least that’s the way it was 50 or 60 years ago. It was a time when the country was less mean and contentious than it is today.
Now, we are in the middle of the worst scandal in Massachusetts State Police history. And, as U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling steps up his federal investigation, it is going to get worse before it gets better. State cops are jumping ship into retirement as though they were aboard the Titanic. Unfortunately, all the good cops, who make up the clear majority, have been tarnished in the process. A goodly number of state police troopers who patrolled the Massachusetts Turnpike out of the nowdisbanded Troop E have for years been scamming the system by filing bogus overtime claims to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. Three of them, all veteran cops, were arrested by the U.S. Attorney for allegedly pocketing thousands of dollars in overtime that they did not work.
Last week they were hauled into federal court in handcuffs. Without their uniforms — spiffy hats, boots, belts, buckles and badges — they looked like Whitey Bulger and his scruffy associates Frank Salemme and Stephen Flemmi being dragged into court. Arrested on embezzlement charges were recent retirees Lt. David W. Wilson, 57, of Charlton and former trooper Paul E. Cesan, 50, of Southwick, and trooper Gary S. Herman, 45, of Chester. If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and likely loss of their pen sions. Meanwhile, in an apparent plea bargain, former Trooper Gregory Raftery, 47, of Westwood pleaded guilty to overtime embezzlement charges.
Raftery was paid $202,769 in 2015, including $82,514 in overtime, and $219,669 in 2016, including $87,607 in overtime. According to court filings, Raftery left his overtime shift hours early or did not show up at all, but still collected the money. Raftery’s plea came after Wilson, Cesan and Herman were arrested and accused of embezzling thousands of dollars in overtime for which they did not work. More cops will soon be indicted, according to sources.
No matter how you paint it, the scandal has wrecked the image of the state police. People look askance at them now. Sworn to uphold the law, the cops became the crooks.
Today even Norman Rockwell couldn’t make them look good.