Worcester County Sheriff Guy Glodis is accused of posing as a police officer and flashing a badge to avoid a $15 parking fee at a public beach. By Howie Carr
Boston Herald Columnist
Friday, August 25, 2006 - Updated:
02:08 AM EST The question of the day is this: Did Worcester County Sheriff Guy Glodis flash a badge while impersonating a working police officer down in Dennis in order to beat a $15 parking fee at a public beach?
Of course he did. Not that he’ll ever admit it, of course.
“Absolutely, unequivocally no,” he said the other day.
Technically, of course, the sheriff is a law enforcement official. But he is also a former Democratic state senator and the son of a former state rep. And in this state, let’s face it, being a sheriff just means that sooner or later you’re probably going to get a target letter from a federal grand jury.
“Why don’t we talk about how I’ve cut workmen’s comp 45 percent?”
Let’s not and say we did, Sheriff. Why don’t we go straight to the Aug. 13 report from the Dennis Police Department. It was Sunday afternoon, and a young kid was manning the little booth at Corporation Beach. She had been advised that there are people like Sheriff Glodis in this world.
“We tell them there’s going to be people who try to bully them,” said an older town official, “who’ll try to intimidate them so they don’t have to pay the $15.”
You can understand why the sheriff was so eager not to pay. After all, he only makes a little north of $100,000 a year, plus he gets all the perks (such as the free county SUV he was driving).
So the girl attendant, whose name is redacted in the report, tells Glodis it’ll cost $15 to park. We join the report in progress:
“The attendant said the man driving removed a badge from his pocket or waistband, showed it to her and stated that he worked for the state.
“The attendant again told the driver that the parking fee was $15. To which the driver responded, ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not parking, I work for the state.’ The RP (reporting person) said the man then drove into the parking lot and into a space.‘
Without paying, naturally. Glodis is lucky he wasn’t charged with impersonating a Kennedy.
I ran this section of the report by Glodis, who said, “No badges were flashed. That’s a real, real exaggeration.”
As per her instructions, the lot attendant called the Dennis police. A cop checked out Glodis’ black Ford Expedition and saw a blue police plate registered to the Worcester Sheriff’s Department displayed prominently on the dashboard. He asked the girl if Guy’s cop story, as preposterous as it sounded, could possibly be true.
She stated that it appeared he was there to patronize the beach, in that he was with his family (what appeared to be his wife and young son) and they had several beach items with them.”
At this point, the cop wrote up a $50 ticket for parking at a beach without a permit. Beautiful.
I asked the sheriff if he had a fake badge.
“No,” Glodis said, “I don’t have a fake badge.”
He no doubt considers it a real badge, even though I’ll bet he found it in a Crackerjacks box.
“I parked illegally,” Glodis said. “I paid the fine the next day, I’m no different than anyone else.”
The funny thing is, Glodis won the office two years ago from an ancient hack named John “Mike” Flynn. One of Flynn’s biggest embarrassments was that several of his family members, who were also on his payroll, had pulled a very similar stunt, parking on the sidewalk as I recall, with their county vehicles. The only difference was, the Flynn crew had parked illegally outside a strip joint at Salisbury Beach. Glodis was at Corporation Beach.
Good to see that Glodis is fulfilling all of his pledges to reform the department. “Listen,” said Glodis, “if the only thing you’ve got on me after a year and a half is a parking ticket, I’ll take it.”
Maybe this will teach Glodis a lesson. But I doubt it. He’s already been at the trough too long.
I don't care who you are. This is outright wrong. Pay the freaking nominal fee.
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Worcester $heriff’s parking pickle a badge of dishonor 
