Turns out State Police can dishonorably discharge troopers and that's what they did with the sergeant accused of selling trucker licenses for bottled water and iced tea
State Police report that Sgt. Gary Cederquist submitted his resignation as head of the Commercial Drivers License (CDL) unit following his federal indictment on charges of getting trucker licenses for people who hadn't passed the required test, effective today.
State Police say they had a parting gift for Cederquist, 58, of Stoughton: Not a gold watch, but a dishonorable discharge. The other active trooper also indicted, Joel Rogers, 54, of Bridgewater, was suspended without pay yesterday, State Police say.
State Police say it "became aware" of a federal investigation into the unit in late 2022 and launched its own investigation, which continues. In addition to the immediate criminal issue - two retired troopers and two non-troopers were also indicted - State Police say they have made several changes in the unit's operations, including requiring the use of body-worn cameras for all CDL tests, adding new supervisors, training and record keeping.
Innocent, etc.
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what does the dishonorable discharge
mean for his pension? Will he be able to collect it right away? If he is convicted I'm assuming the State pension authorities would try to take away the pension.
Getting an image...
Ex-trooper being escorted outside the barracks gate, stripes ripped off the uniform, baton broken in half and thrown to the ground...
"Branded, scorned as someone on the take? What do you do when you're branded? Be a cop in another state."
Just imagine
Corruption is so endemic within the State Police that people are selling their illegal services for a case of bottled water.
Fire everyone and start over.
That's an exageration
One of them got a snowblower out of it too.
So, when will we get a
So, when will we get a governor that will reform the state police?
When we get one that doesn't want to be re-elected.
.
Other than to harass local towns over zoning. . . .
Why do we have an AG?
Found the Milton Resident
I think you mean "correctly enforce state law, including the new MBTA communities act."
Last I looked
Public corruption is also against the law.
Given the AG's office can focus on many things at once, it's a shame they leave corruption issues to the feds.
Let's be fair
... to Campbell, the AG's office has a long and storied history of ignoring public corruption.
Sure is
Agreed public corruption is bad and should be investigated accordingly. NIMBY's flouting state zoning regs is also against the law, and the AG properly enforcing those laws is not "harassing" local towns.
That power is becoming more and more limited though
As of the last 10-15 years, the AG's office is actually serving as the defense attorney for several state agencies that were previously defended by their own in-house attorneys. People could previously file complaints with the AG's office against state agencies (typically for civil rights violations), but the AG's office no longer takes these.
Really back in the day,. . .
I think after Scott Harshbarger's governor run, a local pundit pointed out-
You don't get elected governor by being a good Attorney General.
Rings true today.
Well, you can't have troopers
Well, you can't have troopers disgrace the name of the MSP by setting their prices so low.
They wonder why
Lots of people have negative views towards them, of course not all cops are bad but it's a rare occurrence when cops inform on the bad ones, hopefully that is changing.
I read a story years ago where almost all police answered no when asked if they ever saw a fellow officer doing anything dishonest or illegal.