Beyond the Presidential Protection Detail - Tim McCarthy's Law Enforcement Journey - Part 2
Law enforcement careers demand sacrifice that extends far beyond a single moment of heroism. In this compelling conclusion to our interview with Tim McCarthy, the Secret Service agent who took a bullet for President Reagan, we explore his remarkable 50-year career spanning federal protection and local policing.
After recovering from his near-fatal shooting, McCarthy served 22 years with the Secret Service before becoming police chief in Orland, Illinois for 26 years. His unique perspective bridges two worlds of law enforcement and offers critical insights into the challenges facing officers today. From inadequate resources in federal protection to the devastating impact of the "defund and defame" movement on recruitment, McCarthy speaks with the authority of someone who's led from the front lines.
Key Moments:
- 3:34 - McCarthy discusses Secret Service staffing challenges and agent burnout
- 9:45 - His powerful insights on PTSD in law enforcement and Clint Hill's struggles
- 12:54 - How the defunding movement collapsed police recruitment from 400 to just 50 applicants
- 15:20 - His creation of a 30-jurisdiction task force with a 70% homicide clearance rate
- 18:28 - "If you like helping people, it's the greatest job in the world. I did 50 years of it, and I wouldn't mind doing 50 more."
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Transcript
Welcome back to Heroes Behind the Badge.
Speaker:I'm Dennis Collins.
Speaker:Joined again by Craig Floyd and Bill Erth.
Speaker:In part one of our conversation with retired Secret service agent Tim McCarthy,
Speaker:we heard his firsthand account of the March 30th, 1981 assassination attempt.
Speaker:On President Reagan where Tim was shot protecting the president.
Speaker:We also discussed his analysis of the recent assassination
Speaker:attempts on former President Trump.
Speaker:And now in part two, we'll continue our conversation with Tim about Secret Service
Speaker:leadership, the justice systems handling of John Hinkley Jr. And his distinguished
Speaker:career as a police chief, Tim McCarthy.
Speaker:Thank you for continuing this important conversation with us
Speaker:Bill Erfurth has our next question.
Speaker:Do you have any opinion about the new Secret Service
Speaker:director that Trump appointed?
Speaker:I don't know him at all.
Speaker:Um, I, um, I don't even know much about his background prior to
Speaker:becoming, uh, the director, but the Secret Service needs a wider view.
Speaker:Of law enforcement by its director.
Speaker:The theory of the Secret service going back a long time ago when
Speaker:I started was we want agents going to the protective details.
Speaker:We have excelled in police work, investigative work on the street that
Speaker:is making arrests, search warrants, interviews, everything that goes
Speaker:into criminal investigations, dealing with people, dealing with, you know,
Speaker:pretty tough characters out in the street, that they demonstrate good
Speaker:judgment, sound judgment, sound tactics, things of that nature.
Speaker:That has been the model in, uh, in the past.
Speaker:For going to a protective detail.
Speaker:Um, I think we've gotten away from that largely because much of the
Speaker:investigative role of the Secret Service has now become cyber type.
Speaker:And I don't know that they're on the street as much as they used to be,
Speaker:but I don't know that for a fact.
Speaker:But I think we need someone with, with a broad view, and the new director may
Speaker:have that to talk about, reemphasizing it, not at the risk of, of not providing.
Speaker:The personnel for the presidential detail, but Secret Service
Speaker:has always been short staffed.
Speaker:We've never had the people that have been needed.
Speaker:Um, it's always been, you know, work people to death and, you
Speaker:know, work 30 days with no days off work, 12 hour shifts.
Speaker:And you, you wouldn't believe that we had a, uh, program we call you maxed out.
Speaker:In other words, you couldn't make more in a two week pay period than a congressman.
Speaker:So even though you work 30 days straight, no days off, 12 hour shifts
Speaker:and should have been paid a bunch of money, you weren't try to tell that
Speaker:to a policeman in this day and age that by the way, you're just gonna
Speaker:work and you're not gonna get paid.
Speaker:Uh, so there's it.
Speaker:I don't know that that's, I think they've corrected a little bit, but
Speaker:there's still problems, uh, in that area.
Speaker:So, um, things need to be, need to change if we want the protection.
Speaker:That you'd like to have, you need more people.
Speaker:It's, it's a, it's a people.
Speaker:Um, intense job.
Speaker:I mean, you just have to have the, the resources to do it.
Speaker:You can't use smoke and mirrors, uh, in, in,
Speaker:and I, I have to believe one of the problems with, uh, lack of resources,
Speaker:lack of manpower, is that you all have done such a, a tremendous job
Speaker:over these many, many years since, uh, president Kennedy was assassinated.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Um, there have been a limited number of attempts on, on a president's life.
Speaker:Secret Service has done your job?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Uh, a lot of it behind the scenes, you know, uh, stopping, um, you know,
Speaker:a crisis before it ever started.
Speaker:Um, and, and this is probably why we became a bit complacent when it
Speaker:came to giving the proper resources to the Secret Service, my opinion.
Speaker:And, um, but, but, you know, kudos to you all.
Speaker:You and your colleagues at the Secret Service for doing
Speaker:such a fine job for so long.
Speaker:I wanna go back, uh, for a moment to John Hinkley.
Speaker:The, uh, he's the one that shoots the president.
Speaker:Uh, and then lo and behold, he's, uh, uh, innocent by reason of insanity.
Speaker:Uh, when everybody saw what he did, he obviously had planned this attack.
Speaker:It was premeditated, seems like a a, a capital one, uh, murder conviction to me.
Speaker:And yet he was, um, uh, found innocent by reason of insanity.
Speaker:And then in 2016, he was released permanently.
Speaker:From any confinement, and he is now roaming the streets of
Speaker:this country, uh, um, or, or was for many years, uh, since 2016.
Speaker:Your reaction to that, uh, do you, do you feel that, uh, that was a
Speaker:mistake to let him out when they did?
Speaker:Uh, Craig, he was in custody for a long, long time.
Speaker:We have a history of releasing presidential assassins.
Speaker:Sarah Jane Moore, squeaky from, had been released.
Speaker:All I've ever said about it is I hope they, they're right.
Speaker:They better be right because people need to be held accountable.
Speaker:If some, if one of our past assassins ever attempts something like this
Speaker:again and psychiatry, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's a science.
Speaker:I get it, but it's not an exact science.
Speaker:And no, no psychiatrist will tell you that.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Uh, I think the things you said about pre-planning this and so forth didn't
Speaker:lead me to believe that it was insane.
Speaker:Now, is it insane to attack the president or kill someone?
Speaker:Of course it is, but it happens every day.
Speaker:Homicides occur by the hundreds on a daily basis.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:People who have had far less planning and so forth and have been found, uh,
Speaker:and haven't been found to be insane.
Speaker:So I think it, uh, but it happened.
Speaker:Nothing you can do about it.
Speaker:But he was at St. Elizabeth's Hospital for almost 30, 40 years
Speaker:later and released, uh, personally.
Speaker:Um, I don't think they should have done it, but they did.
Speaker:And I hope they're right because.
Speaker:We, if President Ra, if any president is assassinated.
Speaker:And the Secret Service has done a superb job really over the years at
Speaker:great cost to our employees working their tails off and so forth.
Speaker:But the assassination of a president, um, let's take President Reagan
Speaker:for example, or President Kennedy.
Speaker:President Kennedy, we lost, we'll never know what his agenda,
Speaker:how it would've worked out.
Speaker:Who knows what the country lost when Kennedy was killed, what his
Speaker:agenda would've been, how he would've accomplished it, how he would've
Speaker:made the country a better place.
Speaker:How he might've made the world a more, a better place, a more peaceful place.
Speaker:We'll never know with Ronald Reagan, uh, he had many accomplishments.
Speaker:He was very consequential if he had been killed.
Speaker:President, uh, vice President Bush would've been president.
Speaker:Would he have done the same things?
Speaker:We'll, we'll, we'll never know.
Speaker:And, and we'd really, thankfully we, we don't know other than he
Speaker:did become president himself.
Speaker:So that's what this is all about.
Speaker:And we can't, you know, and, and furthermore, the people are,
Speaker:presidents are elected by the people.
Speaker:President Biden, you know, maybe we didn't disagree with everything he
Speaker:did, but he was elected by the people and he should serve his four years.
Speaker:I. And accomplish what he set out to do and only be removed from office
Speaker:at the ballot box or by impeachment.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:And same with President Reagan, ballot box or impeachment.
Speaker:Uh, and that's what we lose when we have an assassination of one of our presidents.
Speaker:You, you bring up President Kennedy and his assassination November 22nd, 1963.
Speaker:And, uh, it, there's a se legendary secret service agent Clint Hill, who
Speaker:recently passed away at the age of 93.
Speaker:I. And Clin Hill I know is, um, an icon, uh, in law enforcement.
Speaker:Certainly in the Secret Service.
Speaker:Obviously, you know, of Clin Hill.
Speaker:He's the secret service agent that leaped, uh, upon the limousine right after the
Speaker:first shots rang out when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
Speaker:I. And, uh, he talked in later years about how he was haunted by the fact
Speaker:that he could not save President Kennedy's life that day, and he
Speaker:wish he had reacted a bit sooner.
Speaker:Um, and he felt, uh, guilty, uh, and, and he had had terrible bouts
Speaker:with, uh, you know, dependency on alcohol and, uh, uh, other issues.
Speaker:Um, I'm just curious your reaction to that.
Speaker:Um, you having served protecting a president, uh, almost had one
Speaker:assassinated in, in your stead.
Speaker:Um, were you surprised that Clint Hill reacted the way he did and
Speaker:was haunted by, uh, president Kennedy's, uh, death the way he was?
Speaker:Well, as we know Craig, it's a classic case of PTSD, which we
Speaker:didn't recognize at the time.
Speaker:And even during my.
Speaker:The March 30th 81 incident, we didn't recognize it very well because rather than
Speaker:putting those agents on administrative leave that were involved, they were put on
Speaker:12 hour shifts and there was no follow-up counseling for a long time after that.
Speaker:Uh, Clint Hill, we all know he should not have felt guilty because
Speaker:no one could have other than.
Speaker:Now, you know, we don't have open limousines anymore.
Speaker:That ended, um, could have stopped what happened there unless Lee Harvey
Speaker:Oswald was detected and he wasn't.
Speaker:But, you know, he, he was a dedicated secret service agent.
Speaker:I don't blame him for fee.
Speaker:Feeling guilty.
Speaker:Um, you know, we lost a president as a result.
Speaker:The consequences will never know what they would've been or could
Speaker:have been if JFK remained president.
Speaker:But it was a classic case of PTSD that was never treated and it was treated as you
Speaker:pointed out, with alcohol and ultimately, you know, he left, left the job.
Speaker:So we lost a, a talented, dedicated person.
Speaker:It's a shame that it happened, but it was common in all of law
Speaker:enforcement, not just the Secret Service, but all of law enforcement.
Speaker:You know, that PTSD was not recognized, uh, at all as as a medical condition,
Speaker:and I. I feel terrible for Clinton, his family, but I also feel terrible
Speaker:for all the law enforcement officers around the country who've gone
Speaker:through horrible things and prior to the time when we started recognizing
Speaker:the, uh, severe psychological consequences of these types of
Speaker:events.
Speaker:And I think Clint, uh, by sharing his story, he wrote about it in several books.
Speaker:Uh, he talked about it in, uh, many interviews.
Speaker:Um, this man was a hero, a true hero behind the badge.
Speaker:Um, I got to know him over the years.
Speaker:He helped build the National Law Enforcement Museum.
Speaker:He did an oral history.
Speaker:With the museum to tell his story.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And I think his story has helped, uh, to better, uh, deal with the, the PTSD, other
Speaker:mental health, uh, crises and challenges that law enforcement officers face.
Speaker:We've talked about it on this show before, that law enforcement
Speaker:officers deal with about 400 to 600.
Speaker:Traumatic events in their careers.
Speaker:Uh, and that's tough.
Speaker:And they need counseling.
Speaker:They need mental health support to, to cope with, uh, the stresses of the job.
Speaker:Bill, I, I wanted to turn to you 'cause I, I know, um, maybe in
Speaker:closing, we wanna talk to Tim about his post secret service career.
Speaker:He was a chief of police for 26 years in Orland Park, uh, Illinois.
Speaker:And, uh, he dealt with a lot of the, uh, challenges that we've talked about,
Speaker:the defunding and defaming of police.
Speaker:And, uh, perhaps you might want to get into that a little bit
Speaker:with, uh, the, the former chief.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just to wrap this up and, and, and to talk about that, uh, this whole thing.
Speaker:And, and, and now Tim, you're, you're working in a, and working
Speaker:and have your own security business.
Speaker:Talk about that whole defund, defame, the police and, and how you
Speaker:see it and how it's affected things there in Chicago, in your eyes.
Speaker:Well, it, I think it is affected police across the country.
Speaker:I. It's obvious, it's very di the last, uh, re uh, in
Speaker:Illinois we test every two years.
Speaker:You can test less than that to create your list to hire from.
Speaker:Uh, in 20, I retired in 2020 and we had just done the,
Speaker:uh, had the test for police.
Speaker:We had over 400 people, uh, come to the orientation and then it drops off a
Speaker:little bit to about 350 to take the test.
Speaker:So they've had two tests since then.
Speaker:They barely have 50 people that show up for the orientation and take the test.
Speaker:Now, what it's turned to is lateral hiring.
Speaker:You know, the police can go from one department to the next,
Speaker:which I'm not a big fan of.
Speaker:Uh, there's a place for it, but I never used it.
Speaker:And we never enacted an ordinance to do it.
Speaker:But we were getting plenty of people.
Speaker:Our list would've ultimately a hundred, 150 people on it.
Speaker:Now it's not the same and the defund and, and really it's more the
Speaker:defaming, the police that I think has had terrible consequences that
Speaker:it's, it is a very proud profession and remains that way to this day.
Speaker:My father was a sergeant with the Chicago Police Department, grew up.
Speaker:You know, with all my friends, many, many went into law
Speaker:enforcement and that's what's hurt it, uh, more than anything else.
Speaker:Uh, but the officers are still out there.
Speaker:I had a great department, a great mayor to work for two mayors that I worked for.
Speaker:Um, they're, most of 'em are still out there doing the job.
Speaker:Uh, making the traffic stops.
Speaker:The, the, the covid thing hurt us too.
Speaker:'cause we backed off from policing a lot, making traffic stops and things like that.
Speaker:Uh, you know, and, and I think science has showed that, you know, it didn't,
Speaker:you know, all of this isolation didn't.
Speaker:It didn't amount to too much.
Speaker:I, I don't think that's my opinion.
Speaker:It may not be that of others.
Speaker:Uh, that hurt us too.
Speaker:But then you had the, the George Floyd event, which was a, a
Speaker:terrible mistake by law enforcement.
Speaker:But we go through thousands of, of incidents in the Chicago land, area of
Speaker:life threatening events by the police, and we largely handle them very well.
Speaker:And we're going to make mistakes either by commission or omission.
Speaker:In a profession where you have to make, uh, instantaneous decisions, the military
Speaker:makes them too, from time to time.
Speaker:And uh, one of the things about law enforcement, we never
Speaker:get out of the line of fire.
Speaker:I. Yeah, you go for training a week here, a week there, two weeks here, there.
Speaker:But you know, in, in the military they go into combat and see some
Speaker:absolutely horrible, horrible things.
Speaker:But usually they come out for retraining, refreshing, and getting away from it.
Speaker:Law enforcement, we don't do that.
Speaker:You have your, your vacation, but you're back on the firing line right afterwards.
Speaker:And I think we need to look at some type of furlough system to get police.
Speaker:Out of it, but the police are still doing a great job.
Speaker:But we've seen the Safety Act in Illinois.
Speaker:Has certainly been harmful to policing.
Speaker:Um, you know, it's, it's placed conditions on policing that
Speaker:we've never seen in the past.
Speaker:Uh, but the men and women in law enforcement, they're still out there
Speaker:doing their job and suffering the consequences because we still see our
Speaker:officers killed in the line of duty.
Speaker:The bad guys haven't gotten better, by the way.
Speaker:Uh, they haven't gotten better.
Speaker:They took advantage of, uh, COVID.
Speaker:They've taken advantage of the.
Speaker:Defaming defunding and things like the Safety Act, and hopefully the pendulum
Speaker:is moving back in the other direction.
Speaker:Um, I spent 22 years in the Secret Service and 26 years as a chief of
Speaker:police, where the average career is about three to five years as a chief.
Speaker:Uh, and both of 'em were remarkable careers.
Speaker:Uh, what I did like about, uh, uh, being a chief of police within your
Speaker:budget, within your union contracts.
Speaker:Uh, you set the agenda for your department, largely what you're
Speaker:gonna prioritize, equipment, tactics, protocols, and so forth.
Speaker:And of course, following all the state laws and your general orders, and it
Speaker:really gave you an opportunity, uh, to, um, fail or achieve success and success.
Speaker:You know, there's several, you know, successes judged by your crime stance.
Speaker:To a large degree, uh, injuries to your officers, longevity of your officers.
Speaker:There's a lot of metrics, but.
Speaker:You know, crime stats are pretty important.
Speaker:You're not to be there long if your crime stats are going through the roof.
Speaker:Uh, so I enjoyed the, the autonomy that I had as a chief of police.
Speaker:We had a mayor and boards that were, you know, uh, outstanding supporting
Speaker:the police, but keeping politics out of policing in the federal government, the
Speaker:agenda largely comes on the criminal justice side from Washington to a large.
Speaker:And that's not bad.
Speaker:It's just, you know, a different way of doing business.
Speaker:So I had some of the greatest agents.
Speaker:I had some agents that worked for me and I worked with that were some of the
Speaker:best cops God ever created in the same, in local law enforcement and, and, uh,
Speaker:you know, we need to work together and we did in task forces and so forth.
Speaker:Uh, I chaired for almost 15 years what we called a south
Speaker:suburban major crimes task force.
Speaker:Uh, there was a group of about 30 towns that we pooled our resources.
Speaker:In the form of intergovernmental agreement, a board what I was
Speaker:chair of, and handled about 50 homicides a year in our task force.
Speaker:And it was very rewarding because we had a 70% clearance rate at one
Speaker:time until we got a different state's attorney and had different views
Speaker:on charging crimes and so forth.
Speaker:But law enforcement is a great career.
Speaker:Uh, I still encourage kids, even people you know, that uh, have gone to college.
Speaker:Like I did that it's a great career in both our federal agencies, our
Speaker:local agencies, and you get some satisfaction in this job that I don't
Speaker:think you get in too many others.
Speaker:Um, uh.
Speaker:Uh, you know, when you solve a crime, when you put someone behind bars, when
Speaker:you help, uh, I got the picture behind me, the classic picture of, uh, the
Speaker:police officer with a, with a young boy.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So if you like helping people, it's the greatest job in the world.
Speaker:Uh, I did 50 years of it.
Speaker:And, uh, I wouldn't mind doing 50 more.
Speaker:Hey, Tim, we could go on and on and on.
Speaker:I mean, this has been a fabulous interview.
Speaker:Uh, I wanna thank you again from Bill Craig and myself, and mostly on
Speaker:behalf of our listeners and viewers.
Speaker:You just got to hear another real story.
Speaker:From a real cop who placed himself right in the line of fire.
Speaker:I want to thank you retired Secret Service, special agent,
Speaker:Tim McCarthy, uh, for being on the Heroes Behind the Badge, uh, podcast.
Speaker:Tim, uh, I'll say this, uh, president Reagan was fortunate.
Speaker:American people.
Speaker:The American public was fortunate that you lost that coin toss on
Speaker:that day and you were on duty.
Speaker:I know you may not see it that way, but I think in the big picture, you did what
Speaker:needed to be done and you were on duty when you needed to be on that fateful day.
Speaker:Uh, no doubt.
Speaker:There's no doubt that your heroic action.
Speaker:Save the President's life.
Speaker:So again, uh, congratulations for a wonderful career.
Speaker:Thank you for being our guest.
Speaker:Well, thank you for having me, gentlemen.
Speaker:Ha.
Speaker:Have a great day.
Speaker:Thanks, Tim.
Speaker:Thanks, Tim.
Speaker:You're welcome.
Speaker:This is the Heroes Behind the Badge podcast you've been listening to,
Speaker:and if you have been listening, you just heard another real story
Speaker:about a real cop from his own voice.
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