Copyright Hartford Courant
A Connecticut State police topper assigned to the Bradley International Airport detail is charged with a felony. He is accused of using his police credentials to circumvent airport security to bring a banned item onto a flight at the airport. The trooper, 59-year-old Scott McCarthy was charged last month with the felony of illegally tampering with airport equipment for his alleged evasion of safety rules. According to the arrest warrant, McCarthy had a power tool in his carry-on bag when he reached the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint on the afternoon of Friday, October 3. TSA officials saw the item in McCarthy’s carry-on and told him he would have to check the item, identified in the arrest warrant application as “a buffing or polishing tool with the airline before proceeding. Departure time was nearing and checked bags were no longer being accepted. McCarthy apparently was determined to bring that power tool with him on the flight. Since McCarthy works at the airport, he probably could have left the power tool in the police office there. The arrest warrant affidavit alleges that’s what McCarthy told a TSA worker he would do. Instead, he allegedly used his security badge to open “the locked gate behind the ticket gate and accessed the sterile area of [the airport].” From there, the application states, McCarthy made his way to the departure terminal, joined his travel companion, and walked to his flight’s gate, and boarded the flight, never returning to the TSA screening checkpoint. Some sharp-eyed airport security worker appears to have informed a supervisor that McCarthy appeared to have misused his security badge to board a flight with a prohibited item. The airport authority provided state police with a DVD of surveillance video “from within the airport terminal showing McCarthy’s movements during this incident.” The affidavit states that the video is uninterrupted, meaning at no time does McCarthy slip out of view. Other records confirm McCarthy used his badge to swipe his way through doors that allowed him to evade the security checkpoint, it says. Power tools longer than 7 inches are prohibited in carry-on bags because they can be used as weapons, pose a safety hazard, and their batteries may be a fire risk. For McCarthy to have obtained his Security Identification Display Area, SIDA, badge, the warrant affidavit notes, he was required to take regularly scheduled courses to update his training. The training emphasizes that, “using your security badge to allow a passenger to bypass the TSA screening checkpoint is a serious violation.” McCarthy declined to speak with the investigating trooper until he spoke to his union representative. Two days later, a lawyer representing McCarthy told the investigating officer that McCarthy would not be speaking with him. McCarthy has been placed on administrative leave with pay. This year, McCarthy has made $112,00 in salary plus $149,792 in overtime. That’s less than his 2021 high of $305,000, but still another alarming example of the State Police administration failing to fix its overtime problem. McCarthy was hired in by CSP in 2007, so he is getting close to that magic 20 years for a generous pension that includes overtime in its benefit calculation. Experience in watching these discipline matters in state agencies suggests to me that this one will drag on until McCarthy reaches 20 years. The CSP public information office did not post news of McCarthy’s arrest on its website. It does not post every arrest on it but McCarthy’s is no ordinary arrest. If the arrest warrant application is correct and McCarthy, who enjoys the presumption of innocence, flouted the law at the airport where he works, it is no ordinary violation. It undermines confidence in the system that keeps our airports functioning and passengers flying. To add to this trouble in the ranks of the CSP, Trooper Jacob Drechsler was discovered by Southington police to have been driving a CSP cruiser when he struck two mailboxes and a fire hydrant. When Drechsler, who was in civilian clothes, saw local police approaching, he allegedly hopped in the cruiser and attempted to leave the scene. They Ford Taurus was too badly damaged to move. The police observed alleged signs of alcohol consumption in Drechsler and called an ambulance. A Southington officer applied for a warrant to require Drechsler, who joined the CSP in 2023, to submit to a blood draw that will determine his blood alcohol level. Drechsler has been reassigned, and his police powers are suspended. Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner Ronnell A. Higgins apparently believes he has a more pressing matter than the arrest of one officer and an ongoing criminal investigation into another. Higgins released an “effective immediately” memorandum Wednesday not on essential police conduct but six paragraphs on how DESPP employees are to address each other. Seems at HQ, employees have been calling each other by their names, not their titles. Uh-oh. “Effectively immediately, all staff within [DESPP] (sworn and civilian) are to address high-level professionals and public officials using their proper titles and last names in all professional interactions,” Higgins wrote to all staff. Those titles are to be used in “all verbal communication, written correspondence, email exchanges, and public engagements conducted on behalf of the DESPP.” Lawyers shall be called attorney, holders of PhDs will be addressed as Dr., directors by their office. Chief Fiscal Officer Melanie Sparks shall hereafter be called CFO Sparks, even if overtime spending remains a ruinous mess. Higgins calls this an “important policy” and thanks the entire DESPP staff for “your continued cooperation and commitment to maintaining the professionalism that defines DESPPs Divisions.” From the outside, threats to the agency’s professionalism don’t come from what they call each other, but from how they conduct themselves with when vested with the vast authority a free people bestow on them. Kevin F. Rennie can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com
