Report: Trooper smelled of alcohol

SAUGUS – State Police suspended one of their captains indefinitely without pay Tuesday, three days after Saugus police stopped him on Main Street and noticed alcohol on his breath before he led town officers on a brief chase.Thomas McCarthy, 47, of Stoneham, did not appear in District Court on Tuesday for his scheduled arraignment on charges of failure to stop for police and failure to drive in the right lane. Judge Stacey Fortes-White denied attorney Daniel O?Malley?s request to allow McCarthy to not appear in court, but she agreed to continue the court hearing Dec. 22.A hand-written notation on paperwork filed in court indicated McCarthy is in a “Florida facility.” State Police spokesman David Procopio said McCarthy did not show up on Tuesday afternoon at State Police headquarters in Framingham for a duty-status hearing that resulted in his suspension.?We are disappointed he did not show up for his arraignment today,” Procopio said, adding that State Police were informed of McCarthy?s whereabouts but declined to reveal the location.Procopio said State Police have launched an internal affairs investigation into events last Sunday night leading up to McCarthy?s arrest. He stated in a press release on Tuesday that the “question of whether he was intoxicated, as well as using his cruiser while off-duty and other alleged transgressions, will be part of that investigation.”According to the Saugus police log, town officers responded to 116 Saville St. at 10:35 p.m. Sunday for a home alarm sounding. They checked with the homeowner, determined there were no problems and, before leaving the street, Patrolman James Scott spotted a black Crown Victoria at that address.Procopio, in the statement, said town officers found a woman who lives at the home in the garage and spotted McCarthy “sitting in his unmarked cruiser.”Procopio on Tuesday said 116 Saville St. is “an address of a woman known” to McCarthy. He declined to elaborate on the woman?s relationship to McCarthy.Town Assessor?s records list 116 Saville?s owner as Gina Macone. A woman who answered the home?s door Tuesday night refused to speak to an Item reporter.Twenty minutes after driving away from 116 Saville, Scott spotted the black sedan, according to his report filed in District Court, crossing the yellow center line several times on Center Street.The sedan pulled to the side of Main Street once Scott turned on his flashing blue lights. As he walked up to the sedan, the driver turned on flashing blue lights mounted in the Crown Victoria?s rear window.Scott said the driver smelled of alcohol, according to his report.?The operator was the same individual who I had seen earlier, who I believed to be a Thomas McCarthy,” he wrote in the report. “While speaking with him I could smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath. I asked the operator to shut off his vehicle and he replied something like ?Are you kidding me.? (At) this point I asked him again to shut off the vehicle and step out, to which he replied, ?You?ve got to be kidding me, I?m outta here,?” Scott wrote in his report.McCarthy drove down Main Street, over Route 1, and onto Route 1 South followed by Scott and another town officer. A third cruiser joined the pursuit before McCarthy turned into the Sears parking lot and stopped his car.Scott, in his report, said McCarthy did not comply with Scott?s request, which was issued over Scott?s cruiser?s public address system, to turn off his car and drop the keys out of the driver?s side window. Scott said McCarthy got out of the car and when Scott told him he was under arrest for refusal to stop, he quoted McCarthy responding, “Are you kidding me?”According to the report, Scott and a second town officer forced McCarthy to the ground to handcuff him, but the State Police captain resisted Scott?s efforts to handcuff him. Scott wrote in the report that he found an empty beer bottle and two unopened bottles in the sedan, which he identified as a State Police cruiser.Procop