Putting the brass in brass balls...

The good citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are well familiar with the scandals surround the Massachusetts State Police. The most recent scandal has centered on a scheme in which troopers put in for overtime without ever having worked the overtime. This enabled them to pad their salaries in the here-and-now, plus contribute to the earnings that got toward figuring out just how lucrative their already lucrative pensions could be. The only effort required was filling out the lying paperwork, and faking up some citations that would make it seem as if they'd been working.

Dozens of state troopers have been caught up in this one, and they're losing their jobs and/or their pensions and/or receiving sentences. (It's not clear whether any have actually served more than nominal time.) But it's been pretty disgusting to witness the spectacle of first responders resonding first and foremost to their own duplicity and greed.

But the overtime scam is by no means the only scandal to surface of late.

There was also the case of the troopers who worked at the State Police Armory (which manages gun purchases and inventory for the staties) who were caught taking free guns from a firearms dealer who did business with the state. Gee, why would anyone find this at all amiss...

One of these jamokes, Robert Outwater (who took 10 guns from the dealer - let's not bother to ask ourselves why he thought he needed 10 guns; probably one of those 2A nutters arming up for the next civil war), has been suspended without pay since 2016. But now he's suing for his job back. And then some.

In order to get out of the hot water he found himself in, Outwater elected to cooperate with the AG. He agreed to cop to an ethics violation and to pay a relatively modest ($5K) civil fine - and have any criminal charges against him dropped - in exchange for diming his boss and another senior trooper. Now he wants back in.

In a lawsuit filed against State Police in Middlesex Superior Court last week, Outwater’s lawyer said the investigation by Healey’s office is done and argued his client should get his job back, and more.

“Trooper Outwater has been charged with no crime and found guilty of no crime," Boston attorney Patrick Hanley said in a statement to the Globe. “The State Police has not charged Trooper Outwater with internal misconduct, let alone found him guilty of such misconduct.” (Source: Boston Globe)

Oh, I see. It doesn't matter if a crime were committed. As long as you're not charged with a crime, you should be A-OK to keep on being a statie. Got it.

Me thinks it might be time for the MSP to charge Outwater with internal misconduct, even though I understand that, when it comes to defining internal misconduct, the Massachusetts State Police force has erected an credibly steep threshold to get over.

Hanley does plenty of boo-hooing on behalf of his client. 

“Yet the Department has suspended him for 41 months without affording him due process,” Hanley continued. "This lawsuit is simply an effort to put Trooper Outwater back to work and make him whole for the months the Department has suspended him without the benefit of due process.”

The lawsuit says State Police should be ordered to: lift the suspension; give Outwater back pay, including for overtime and details; restore his benefits; and promote him to the sergeant, a rank and pay increase he was bypassed for in 2018 while suspended.

So, is the overtime he's entitled to real overtime, or real fake overtime? And how do they figure out the difference? And don't get me started on details. These are the ultra-lucrative gigs in which local and state cops get to sit in their cars and fiddle with their phones while keeping a partial eye on road work and other outside construction/repair work. Of course, they may not even be sitting in their cars at all. There was one situation in which a state trooper parked his state police car at a worksite, took off for parts unknown (probably another job), and then came to collect the car at the end of the day. As I always say, a job worth doing is certainly worth not doing at all.

“Trooper Outwater’s alleged misdeeds are immaterial, where the Department has failed to follow its own investigatory and disciplinary processes,” Hanley added.

Ah, the case of the immaterial misdeed. 

In the suit, Hanley noted how the Outwater’s former armory colleagues who were charged “were permitted to retire and are now collecting their lucrative state pensions.”

Retired lieutenant Paul M. Wosny and retired trooper Michael G. Wilmot were each charged with a felony in October in East Brookfield District Court. They allegedly received free guns from a state-contracted firearms dealer and accepted personalized assault rifles from a gunmaker seeking business with the state.

I don't know whether they were allowed to keep those snappy personalized assualt rifles, but both of these bums were allowed to retire, and are collecting state pensions (which they may lose). So you can't blame Overwater for being a bit steamed. Still, looking for your back pay - plus non-worked overtime and details, plus a promotion - when you are an admitted wrongdoer, seems like way too much of a reach.

The analogy is imperfect, but I keep thinking of the old joke in which a man kills both of his parents and then throws himself on the mercey of the court because he's now an orphan.

I won't be shedding any tears for Robert Overwater. What made you think it was okay to take those free guns, huh? You screwed up. You had a good thing going. A well-paying job with an end-of-the-rainbow pension. A job in the armory where your life wasn't really on the line and where you weren't required to 'run to danger' on a regular basis. 

Maybe I wouldn't be this outraged if "all" he was looking for was his job back. But backpay for OT and details? And a promotion? Talk about putting the brass in brass balls.

Whatever happened to the simpler days of 'don't do the crime if you can't do the time'?