As a large black cloth was pulled back Monday to reveal a sign dedicating the Orland Park police station in his honor, former Chief Tim McCarthy joked he was happy to see it happen “while I’m still alive.”
McCarthy, who was chief for 26 years, said the dedication of the facility an unbelievable honor.
The Village Board voted in June to name the station for McCarthy, who joined the department as chief in 1994 and retired in August 2020.
“While my name is on the building, it’s due to the hard work of the police officers,” he said. “My name may be on there but it is because of them that my name is on here.”
Mayor Keith Pekau called McCarthy a consummate professional who “demonstrated a lifetime of leadership and heroism.”
McCarthy has been in law enforcement for five decades, including 22 years with the Secret Service.
“It’s been a wonderful career,” he said.
He was part of the Secret Service detail protecting then-President Ronald Reagan March 30, 1981, when Reagan left the Washington Hilton Hotel and John Hinckley Jr. opened fire.
McCarthy, 32 at the time, was hit by a bullet and hospitalized in critical condition. He returned to service months later.
In 2016, he was the first recipient of the Chief of Police of the Year award from the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.
McCarthy worked to establish and lead the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force, which assists area departments with homicide investigations, and was also Orland Park’s acting village manager for a time.
Pekau said during McCarthy’s tenure the department implemented comprehensive community policing initiatives including bike patrols, citizen police academy, neighborhood meetings and cookouts, and a crisis intervention team focused on police response to mental health-related incidents.
Orland Park police Chief Eric Rossi, who joined the department in 2004 and became chief in May 2022, described McCarthy as “a great leader, a great mentor.”
“He did a lot for the department and for the village,” Rossi said.
McCarthy praised the mayors and village trustees he worked with over the years, noting support from elected officials is a key to the Police Department’s continued success.
He also praised the work of department employees who served under him.
“They’re the ones that got me here, so to speak,” he said.
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McCarthy said he had no idea he would be chief so long, noting that the typical police chief might serve about five years.
“I had no idea it would be 26 years,” he said.
Even after retiring, McCarthy didn’t leave law enforcement.
In November 2020 he was brought on as interim police chief in Mokena, and stayed until a replacement was brought on in May 2021.
A longtime Orland Park resident, McCarthy, 74, is president of Sentinel Security in Palos Heights, which provides armed an unarmed security guards and security consulting services.
In the assassination attempt, Reagan left the hotel after giving a speech and was walking toward his limousine when Hinckley stepped from the crowd and aimed a .22-caliber pistol at the president.
Jim Brady, the president’s press secretary, was the first to be hit by gunfire, and then Washington police Officer Thomas Delahanty. McCarthy was hit by the third bullet after putting himself between the shooter and the president, and a fifth bullet ricocheted off the limousine and hit Reagan under the arm.
In a previous interview with the Daily Southtown, McCarthy said he and other agents had not been notified that the president would briefly walk a rope line, greeting onlookers, and McCarthy said he was quickly scanning the crowd for any signs of a potential threat.
“All of a sudden, John Hinckley pushed himself forward,” McCarthy said. “I turned toward the direction the shots were coming from.”
He worked eight years with the Secret Service’s Presidential Protective Division, and in addition to Reagan was also part of the protective details for presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. McCarthy spent 14 years as a criminal investigator with the Secret Service.
McCarthy retired from the Secret Service in October 1993 as the special agent in charge of the Chicago field office.