By Chief Robert Moulton

Scarborough Police Department

In the police department’s column a few of weeks ago, Sgt. John O’Malley wrote a very informative article about our motorcycle program. As I read his piece, I could not help but think of an earlier time and my own experience with a police motorcycle. Sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, Kawasaki motorcycles had taken on a prominent role in police circles around the country. As part of their promotional process they were going around the country and “lending” police departments a fully outfitted police motorcycle to try out for a few days.

Many local departments were taking advantage of this opportunity and we were lucky enough that Chief John Flaherty decided to opt in. For those of us that rode motorcycles this was pretty exciting and we waited for the day that the bike would arrive for its trial period in Scarborough.

Finally, the day arrived and the transporter showed up in the front parking lot beside Route 1.

A small crowd began to gather and look the bike over while the Kawasaki representative began to espouse the benefits of a motor unit over a cruiser when it came to working through traffic. It was a summer day and traffic was fairly heavy at Oak Hill intersection so the representative from Kawasaki asked me if I would mind doing a demonstration. Well, he didn’t have to ask twice. He asked me to go south on Route 1 and then come back northbound with the lights and siren on to show how well traffic responded and how much easier it was to maneuver through traffic.

After riding toward Scarborough Downs, I made the flip and came back up Route 1 as directed with lights flashing and the siren wailing. He was absolutely right, traffic quickly pulled over and I guided the bike through the busy Oak Hill intersection with ease. 

When I returned to the front yard of the station, several more people had gathered and after some quick descriptions of my experience the representative asked if I would make another swing through to show the newest arrivals. I don’t recall that it took much persuading before I was once again headed for Oak Hill intersection with lights and siren. 

Pulling back in to the yard I could see that an even bigger crowd had gathered and there was much excitement over the new CHiP style patrol unit. Everyone was looking it over and asking questions and with the slightest bit of encouragement I was back on the road for “one last pass.” Pulling in after the final pass, I shut the bike off and began talking with all of the folks that had gathered to look it over. 

This was back in the days when the police station consisted of two offices and a holding cell with a dispatch center in the front corner facing Route 1. At about that time, I looked up and saw Dispatcher Horace Davenport walking across the parking lot toward us. I assumed he was coming up to look for himself and I turned to him with a big grin and asked what he thought. He allowed that it was a pretty nice bike and then went on to say that he had a message for me from Chief Flaherty. 

Now Horace was a quiet and soft-spoken man so when he began to speak it was pretty clear to me that he was relaying Flaherty’s message verbatim. In the interest of family reading I will not try to quote him but it was clear to me that the chief was “slightly” less enthusiastic about this demonstration than I was.

It seems that Chief Flaherty had been meeting with Town Manager Carl Betterley in Betterley’s office at Town Hall. In those days, Betterley’s office was in the front corner of Town Hall, which sat about 20 feet from the edge of Route 1. 

Flaherty spoke pretty clearly and direct and generally when he explained something to you there wasn’t a lot of guessing about what he might have meant. Even more telling though was the tip of the cigar that he smoked back then. The length and redness of the ash on the tip was generally in direct proportion to how much trouble you might be in. In my mind’s eye that day I could picture him standing in Betterley’s office making that phone call to Dispatcher Davenport with the tip of his cigar in flames.

He never did say any more about it, but you can bet for the next few days that we had the motorcycle I spent a lot of time patrolling the back roads – far away from Route 1.

The Scarborough Fire, Police and Public Works Departments produce a weekly feature for the Leader educating the public about various duties of the departments and public safety issues.