| It will be five years this month since Middletown Police Chief Joseph McCarthy died at the age of 92. An unforgettable figure known to be both controversial and kind, sympathetic and tough, liked and hated, but always recognized and remembered.
This is a story I wrote for the Monmouth Journal the week after he died. |
While friends, colleagues and members of the community joined the family in mourning the death of Joseph McCarthy this week, they also reveled in recanting stories of the legendary Chief of the Middletown Police Department — who served in that capacity for 23 years — and who was known as much for being a tough cop as he was for being kind, gentle, generous and always offering a helping hand.
McCarthy died Monday, one month to the day after his 92nd birthday. A Mass of Christian burial was held this morning, at Mary, Mother of God Church in New Monmouth. Burial followed at Fair View Cemetery, Middletown.
In the true generous spirit of McCarthy, the family has asked that any donations in his name be made to the Wounded Warriors Project, 4899 Belford Rd., Suite 300, Jacksonville, Fla. 32256.
“Joe could be summed up in a song,” said former Middletown Police Chief Robert Letts, a close friend of McCarthy for the 33 years he served with him on the department. “‘I did it my way’ explains how Joe ran the department, and his life,” Letts said.
The two veteran officers rose through the ranks together, with Letts also serving as Chief of Detectives before becoming Chief when McCarthy retired in 1990.
“I have so many great memories of him, not only as a police officer, but as a friend,” Letts said. “We traveled together, he and his wife Kate were sponsors for my sons’ sacraments in Church, we were good friends.”
Letts chuckled remembering the ‘other’ McCarthy — the Chief.
“He called staff meetings to hear all the opinions of his senior officers for specific plans or programs,” Letts said. “He heard all the comments, but in the end would say, ‘Nope, we’re doing it this way!’ That was Joe.”
Giving one example of McCarthy’s leading from the front, Letts recalled the 1970s when there were reports Vietnam protesters were tearing down an American flag at the high school.
“We all were recommending we stay low key, keep an eye on the situation, and to be prepared if anything did happen, but not to bring a lot of attention to it,” Letts said. “Not Joe. He said we were to go out in force, standby and be prepared right in front and in the open before anything would happen.”
Fortunately, he added, nothing happened, but Chief McCarthy always had his department prepared for any incident, before it happened.
Not only was he a great leader, but he was also the most progressive chief in the state, Letts said.
“We were among the first to have blue lights on patrol cars when that change came in, and we were among the first to have computers in our police vehicles,” he said.
Former Middletown Police Chief Robert Oches, who worked with both Letts and McCarthy, remains appreciative that McCarthy hired him in 1974. Now retired after 40 years on the department, Oches, who served three years as chief and still lives in Middletown, said, “He was always tough, but he was always good.”
He laughed when he thought about how McCarthy would react to all the hubbub surrounding his funeral — most likely yelling at everybody throughout because, “he never wanted any hoopla, or any attention, he’d be yelling if he saw how many people were out there to honor him.”
Oches said McCarthy mentored him throughout his career, even after he was retired.
“I always looked up to him, I tried my best to live up to his expectations,” Oches said. “He taught us that being a police officer was more than fighting crime and keeping neighborhoods safe. It was also about giving service to the people. He’d have us driving senior citizens to doctor’s appointments, helping a kid in need — he taught us the importance of community service before it even had a name.”
There was one time, Oches recalled, in the 1970s when he was a rookie officer and McCarthy was vacationing in Florida. He said he received a call from the chief, telling him he had just received a call in Florida from a neighbor in Port Monmouth. A woman in the neighborhood hadn’t been seen in a few days, the chief said, and directed Oches to go to the house to check on her. When Oches got no answer and all the doors and windows were locked, he called the Chief back in Florida to report he couldn’t get in to check.
“The Chief told me not to worry, we’d pay for it, but that I should break a window, get inside and make sure the woman was okay,” Oches recalled.
The patrolman did as he was told, and found the neighbor on the floor, severely dehydrated and unable to call for help. Oches called the first aid squad and accompanied her to the hospital, with the woman holding his hand in the ambulance the entire trip. He said she kept telling him to be sure to thank Chief McCarthy.
And Oches also made sure the window was repaired.
Oches also pointed out that while McCarthy was a prominent leader in Middletown and the county, he never let his power go to his head. Oches recalled Chief McCarthy had a sign behind his desk that read, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
Former Police Chief John Pollinger wrote many of his own sentiments about the former chief on his Facebook page, also displaying photos through the years.
“It really is tough,” Pollinger said. “I first met Chief McCarthy at a banquet for the local first aid squad I belonged to at the age of 17. I mentioned I was a cadet and asked him if he had any plans in the future for a police cadet program. He invited me to his office the very next day. After a brief interview, he told me he wanted to start one and told me to go out and get khakis and black shoes. He had me come in, work records and allowed me to ride with the regular officers. No badge, no patch, no official role. The program never got off the ground but that never stopped him or me. A year later, Law Enforcement Exploring was just getting off the ground and off I went on my journey and career. I owe it all to him.”
Current Chief Craig Weber said, “Chief McCarthy was a remarkable person who touched so many lives and did so much good for the community. He devoted his life to public service and worked tirelessly to help maintain a wonderful quality of life and make Middletown one of the safest towns in the United States. As a law enforcement leader he was a pioneer who was truly ahead of his time.”
Police officers who served under McCarthy also have fond and lasting memories of the Chief who will forever be a role model in the township. Irv Beaver, who retired in 1989 after 25 years on the police department, conceded that he and McCarthy did not always agree, but, he said, their disagreements were always because of his position as the state delegate to the PBA, a position Beaver held for 12 years.
“Chief McCarthy was a very tough chief and he made Middletown the safest community in the state of New Jersey,” Beaver said.
McCarthy served on the Middletown Police Department under 17 different mayors, beginning with Mayor Frank Blaisdell in 1954, through Mayor Patrick Parkinson in 1990.
Residents throughout Monmouth County, but especially in the Bayshore, always saw McCarthy as the man who would take on any challenge, respond to any need or contribute to any worthy cause.
Local entrepreneur Jack Westlake, who now lives in Red Bank, recalls he and Joe first became friends 47 years ago when each learned they were both born in Jersey City. McCarthy came to Monmouth County in his youth, attending Middletown High School before joining the Army, and Westlake came in the 1970s.
“He was the best,” Westlake said. “They don’t make them like that anymore. He didn’t ever just say hello. He said what can I do for you?”
When the pair were talking at a funeral in Jersey City one day, they learned they had lived only blocks apart from each other growing up.
McCarthy remembered that Westlake’s grandmother had planted a bush in the front yard of the Westlake home some 70 years before, and he wanted to get a photo of Westlake in front of the still standing but now decades old plant. So after the funeral, McCarthy asked him to stop at a store so he could buy a camera and on to the house they went to get the picture.
“Then after he took that picture, we drove to his former house, where he got out, stood on the lawn and told me to take a photo of him, and to be sure I got the house number in the picture,” Westlake recalled.
When Westlake was beginning the new ferry service out of the Bayshore, he said McCarthy was going to every freeholder meeting, “to be sure they gave me all the permits and everything necessary to get it underway.”
Westlake added, “He went to so many meetings they asked me if I had him on the payroll.”
He did not, and it was simply that McCarthy thought water-borne service would be a boon to the Bayshore and an improvement for Monmouth County.
Former Atlantic Highlands Mayor Dick Stryker also had humorous and warm memories of Chief McCarthy, especially how he “mobilized the entire Bayshore during some very difficult times,” especially the riots in Asbury Park.
“He brought people together and always defended the rights of the people,” Stryker said. “The Chief is a part of history, not only of Middletown but of the entire Bayshore.”
—
