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Chester County Press

Uncle Irvin: Much ado about a police chief

02/10/2015 02:01PM ● By Richard Gaw



The Chester County Press has learned that the lawsuit brought by the husband and wife that Chief Albert McCarthy rear-ended last year while "blacked out" was settled by binding arbitration for an award not to exceed $400,000.

The hit-and-run incident was precipitated by McCarthy's form of epilepsy that was being treated, and which should have been known by the Kennett Township supervisors who hired him. McCarthy was in no condition to be driving at all, let alone in a police cruiser.

He surrendered his driver's license and underwent additional medical tests and medication.

Chief McCarthy sat in his office and drew full salary and benefits while being treated, and was permitted to return to his job with full salary and benefits. He is still the police chief of the two-man Kennett Township police force.

McCarthy had a checkered 20-plus year career as a patrolman and chief for the Kennett Borough Police Department before he resigned and then sued Kennett Borough, as he had several times in his police career.

McCarthy sued this newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily Local News for publishing a psychiatric report on him as part of a lawsuit brought against McCarthy by a patrolman he had fired. A federal judge threw out McCarthy's complaint against the newspapers as having no merit.

This incident gave Kennett Township supervisors a reason to terminate McCarthy and place him on disability -- and, for whatever reason, they have not.