POTTSTOWN >> After more than four decades in law enforcement, a Pottstown Police corporal is ready to take his next steps forward.
Cpl. Charles McClincy of the Pottstown Police Department enjoyed his last day Friday as he moves into retirement with the record for years of service to the department. With 44 years (to the day) under his belt, McClincy looked back on his time in law enforcement with fondness and gratitude.
McClincy began working with the Pottstown Police Department on April 9, 1973, crediting his father for his interest in police work.
“I joined the department probably because of my dad. He was an officer here. I was one of four father and son teams that worked with the department over the years,” said McClincy. “A little over a year after I started here I went to the Philadelphia K9 Academy to become a K9 officer. I was a K9 officer for five years before I started doing routine patrols.”
One of those routine patrols is one that McClincy remembers very well.
“Quite a number of years ago I was working day shift. I had responded to two different burglary calls in the same eight hour tour of duty. It was two burglaries in progress,” he said. “I actually physically ran down and caught both of those burglars in that one eight hour tour of duty. To my knowledge that was never done before that and I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been done since then.”
Though McClincy had plenty to be proud of while patrolling, it wasn’t long after that McClincy began taking an interest in working conditions for the police department. In fact, thanks to McClincy, officers in Pottstown no longer had to patrol in complete silence.
“I started taking an interest in working conditions here because back in those days they weren’t the best of things,” he said.
“I wanted to try and get some changes made. For instance, we didn’t have AM/FM radios in the patrol cars. When you’re driving around on patrol for eight hours listening to thoughts in your head rather than music it’s kind of boring and monotonous at times. At that time, cars didn’t come standard with radios and I wanted to put them in police cars. I had a conversation with Chief James Rogers and he said, ‘If you get these materials and get them put in the cars, you can have them.’ So I made arrangements to get radios out of junk cars and antennas, knew a guy who could install the stuff and we installed them in all the marked police cars. That’s how we got our first radios.”
In addition to giving officers a break from the silence, McClincy worked passionately to make changes to the police pension plan as well as helping to initiate change in the department’s use of swing shifts.
“When I found out how detrimental swing shifts were to your health I wanted to see if we could get permanent shifts. So I went to the police administration and they told me if I could get enough people to volunteer for each shift they would let me do it. I had enough people for every shift except the midnight shift and I didn’t want to work it … But if it was the only way we were going to get it and it was a benefit for everybody, I decided to agree and work the midnight shift.”
McClincy ended up working that shift for 17 years and said he surprisingly grew to love it. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that McClincy went into special services. During that time, he worked doing much of the behind the scenes work including traffic studies, traffic ordinances and other things in which patrol officers don’t have a part. He did that for about four years before returning to patrol duties for another four years.
After those years on patrol, McClincy again returned to the special services job.
“I got back in it and I loved it just as I had loved it before and I put in my paperwork to retire shortly after that,” McClincy said. “I enjoyed it. I enjoy getting tasked with different challenging activities and being able to successfully make it happen. I think being a special services officer, to me, was probably the most rewarding of anything I’ve done with this department.”
As he went through the motions of his last day, McClincy said he was trying hard not to think about it. He said that he has some regrets about not being able to make some changes he wanted to oversee and that there are some people he is really going to miss.
“It got a little bit intense at that ceremony,” said McClincy about being honored at Wednesday’s Borough Council meeting. “My knees were shaking when I first got there. That was a little hard emotionally but out of respect for the chief, borough administration, council and the mayor, I felt it was necessary. I don’t like those kinds of things. It’s nice when people say thank you but I don’t seek out recognition. I get personal satisfaction knowing that I was able to successfully do the things that I was asked to do.”
McClincy said, however, that he hopes his work with the police pension, specifically helping to put it back in local control and growing it from $5 million to over $20 million, as well as his work negotiating improvements for the officers, will be a lasting mark on the station.
As for his retirement plans, McClincy said family tree research and lots of travel are on the list.
“I’m going to do some full time family tree research and we’re going to do some travelling,” he said. “I plan on taking at least one major trip a year if not two. I’m going to go to Disney World.”
When asked if he had anything left to say after 44 years of service to the Pottstown Police Department, McClincy said simply, “It’s been a hoot!”
