Gun-toting Toll Collectors
Disarmed. Boston Herald:
Gun-toting toll collectors have been stripped of their sidearms by Mass Pike brass after secretly carrying them for decades without formal training, the Herald has learned.
“I didn’t want to have a wild west show out there,” said Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Executive Director Alan LeBovidge, who ordered the practice stopped. “I could find nothing to show that the employees had state police training that would make them qualified to carry guns.”
But union officials said they are going to fight to allow the toll collectors to keep their weapons, even though a Pike review found the guns were not being properly maintained, with firing pins misaligned and other problems.
LeBovidge said he forced 16 Turnpike toll collectors and couriers to turn in their firearms after finding that the only instruction they received was target practice at a private firing range in Dorchester. He said the employees were carrying .38-caliber handguns to protect themselves while transporting cash from toll booths to a central holding facility.
Pike managers said they are facing resistance from union leaders. One Pike official said the authority’s primary union, Local 127, has filed a grievance to fight LeBovidge’s decision. Union head Robert Cullinane did not return a phone call seeking comment.
“It’s absurd,” said state Sen. Steve Baddour (D-Methuen). “The last time I saw a toll taker carrying a gun was when Sonny got blown away in ‘The Godfather.’ ”
Pike officials said state police have been tapped to transport the toll money while the authority’s policy is being reviewed. The guns were issued by the Turnpike Authority to employees who carried them in holsters while driving along the highway.
State Sen. Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) called the old practice “frightening.”
“It’s insane,” he said. “It’s a tremendous liability, and it’s another symptom of a much more insidious disease at the Pike. This kind of stuff would never exist at a transparent state agency.”
At least one Republican lawmaker said he is not troubled by the practice. “I think they should have the proper training, but I don’t have an issue with them carrying guns,” said state Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth). “If they’ve taken the training to get their firearms license, then it’s not a big deal.”
They sound at least as well trained as your average $10 an hour armored car guard. The big news is that toll takers were packing at all. In Massachusetts, of all places. But Howie Carr makes a couple of salient points:
It’s always been highway robbery out on the Mass Pike.
But who knew it was armed highway robbery?
Just when you think the hackerama can’t get any more absurd comes this story about armed toll takers on what the “workers” themselves call the MassSpike.
Memo to toll takers: you’re supposed to put on a mask before robbing someone. It’s a tradition. Rubber gloves are not enough.
Let me see if I understand this. These sticky-fingered payroll patriots rob us two or four times a day five days a week, depending on where we get on the World’s Most Overstaffed Highway. And yet they claim they need guns to protect themselves from the unarmed motorists they’re ripping off.
Or are the guns supposed to protect them when the ceiling tiles start tumbling in the Ted Williams Tunnel?
…
Who exactly are the toll takers worried is going to rob them? From the exposes during the Romney administration’s brief era of trying to let the light shine in at the Pike, it appears the most outrageous thievery is committed, as it usually is in most places, by the employees themselves.
The most shocking thing about this story, of course, is that not a single toll taker has yet whacked another one. Wouldn’t it have been something if the brother of one state legislator had gunned down the nephew of another?
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:37 am Comments (2) on Wednesday, February 27, 2008
2 Responses to “Gun-toting Toll Collectors”
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February 27th, 2008 at 11:37 am
This has been going on for decades and someone is only now upset about it? Did they just have a rash of incidents where these guns were used? Those that worked, that is.
February 27th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I know of a NYPD detective years ago who was “pencil passed” for decades on his yearly qualifier by a willing range accomplice. The day he needed the gun to actually work, it didn’t and he was killed by a perp. The gun was so encrusted with crud and rust from 20 years in the holster with never being cleaned and 20 year old ammo that the cylinder wouldn’t even turn.
I have no problem with the employees packing, but they need to have a firearm in working order for it to be worth anything other than a paperweight.