Lifelong Fields Corner resident Gerry McHale plans to run
for Suffolk County Sheriff next year.

By Jim O'Sullivan

He is the insider's outsider, a career lawman with a resume listing beat duty and an area command, a master's degree in criminal justice, and top secret clearance with the U.S. Department of Justice, an electoral neophyte who sneers at patronage and jockeys for the corner on principle.

Gerard McHale, lifelong Dorchester resident, father of three, and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, is running for sheriff.

"It was at a good time in my life, when I had some time to leave the police department," said McHale, the Fields Corner man who will retire in February from his post as a Boston Police detective on the bank robbery task force. In a surprise move he attributed to proper timing, McHale announced his candidacy at a Florian Hall fundraiser for Mayor Thomas Menino last month.

While touting his own extensive background in law enforcement, McHale also questioned the "principles" of his opponents, which include incumbent Suffolk Country Sheriff Andrea Cabral and, in all likelihood, City Councillor-at-Large Steve Murphy.

McHale blasted Cabral for "patronage and mismanagement" of the sheriff's office, saying Cabral, instead of providing the reform prescribed in last year's biopsy by U.S. Attorney Donald Stern, brought more politics-as-usual in the form of patronage.

"I think that's going to come back and hurt her," McHale said. "Will I do the same thing? Only time will tell, but if I get in there, I'm going to be looking within. There's people who have been there 15, 20 years who haven't had a chance to show their talents."

McHale also criticized Cabral for of her party switches: first from unenrolled to Republican when offered the post by then acting Gov. Jane Swift last November, and then to Democratic when lured in May by the state political establishment.

"That says something for her credibility," McHale said.

After her office initially declined to respond, Cabral called McHale's charges "absolutely hysterical," and said "I don't think this guy is worthy of engaging me in anything.

"I'm a little too busy being sheriff to discuss the merits of the dreams of those trying to be sheriff," Cabral told the Reporter last week.

McHale also lit into Murphy, who last month placed second in the at-large preliminary election, and is hoping to raise his profile with a similar finish in the Nov. 4 final. McHale said Murphy is "running for two offices at once."

"If he's so interested in running for sheriff, why doesn't he leave as being a councillor?" McHale asked rhetorically.

Murphy declined comment, but campaign spokesperson Brooke Scannell said, "We're running for City Council. That's our absolute, singular focus right now."

"If he wants to take the year off, good luck to him," McHale said of Murphy. "But I'm in it, I'm in it to stay. He knows I'm no gumdrop."

No gumdrop, indeed. McHale brandishes a gaudy resume, with municipal service back to his hiring in 1974 in City Hall's personnel office. He became a police officer in 1980, worked his way up to detective, then superintendent, served as commander of Area E, department night commander, and now works with the FBI on bank robberies, kidnappings, and crimes against children. He sports a master's degree in criminal justice from Curry College and a bachelor's degree in history from Norwich University. All three of his children work in law enforcement.

He knows he'll have to grapple for name recognition against the incumbent and a three-term city councillor who last year ran statewide for treasurer. But he's hoping his 11 seasons as a hockey coach at Don Bosco High School, one of a string of community links for the Park Street resident, will help him roll up support heading into next September's primary.

During a one-hour interview over coffee at Greenhills in Adams Corner recently, McHale greeted several well-wishers with law enforcement backgrounds, and said he's been talking with officials in the corrections system who have expressed support.

"Come the May or June time frame, I don't want anybody to be able to say, 'Gerard McHale hasn't asked me to be with him,' " McHale said. "I'm not going to miss a leader in the city that I have an opportunity to sit down with."

"I've always followed it close, with the problems they had over the years, and I thought it would be a good fit for me," McHale said of his decision to bid for the sheriff's seat. "When I saw the opportunity, I jumped at it."