‘How can I make this funny for everyone’: Cape Elizabeth public safety officer always shared his joy
It was late at night, and the officer didn’t immediately respond to his dispatch.
“Bueller… Bueller,” lifelong public safety dispatcher Greg Tinsman said, in his trademark baritone voice, Cape Elizabeth Police Chief Paul Fenton remembered.
“He always said something weird,” said Fenton, who worked with him for decades. “He’d be worried about you, but he’d make light of it.”
Tinsman, who made his career in public service working as a public safety dispatcher, firefighter and reserve police officer in Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, Kennebunk and Sanford, had a serious job. As a dispatcher for decades, he coached the public and officers through some of the worst moments of their lives. A fire. A car crash. A medical emergency.
“He just had a very calming, controlled way of dispatching everything,” said Kevin Riordan, his coworker of more than ten years. “Everybody always felt very safe with Greg.”
And through it all, he was always quick with a joke, a cartoon sketch or a prank.
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Greg Tinsman, who was a public safety officer in Cape Elizabeth for most of his life. (Courtesy of Cape Elizabeth Police Department)
The 70-year-old retired public safety officer died on Wednesday of natural causes, and in the days since, friends and coworkers have laughed as much as they’ve cried, remembering his sense of whimsy, mischievous nature and the joy he so eagerly shared with others.
He’s survived by his son Nicholas Fogg, daughter Lindsay Crowley and grandchildren Kiley Moholland and Brooke Moholland.
When it was cold, Fenton remembered, Tinsman sprayed his coworkers’ cars with mist from a hose, little by little during his smoke breaks.
“In the morning, you’d go get your car, and it would be an ice block,” Fenton said.
Tinsman would come outside with a cigarette as his victim tried to scratch their key into the lock.
“He’d say ‘It must be that European paint job that oxidized,” Fenton remembered.
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Greg Tinsman would create comics about things happening in his life. This one is about a day shift sergeant who doesn’t like to go outside in the rain. (Courtesy of Kristie McLaughlin).
Any time something noteworthy happened at work, Tinsman sketched silly cartoons in real time. Even during contentious contract negotiations at union meetings, he was scribbling away.
“You knew by watching him, if he was looking up and down, you’re like ‘oh good, what’s this going to be?” Fenton said. He still keeps some of the drawings in his office. “It’s like he was always thinking ‘how can I make this funny for everyone.’”
He was caring, Fenton said, never afraid to say that he missed you or loved being your friend. And years after he stopped working for Cape Elizabeth, Tinsman still went to every hiring ceremony for the force.
“He was always the first person I called,” Fenton said. “I knew he would show up and bring positivity.”
He cared about his town, where he worked for more than 30 years and had deep family ties to. “He’s a Cape guy,” Fenton said.
Tinsman took his job seriously, even when he was being silly, and mentored the next generation of dispatchers.
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Greg Tinsman started his public safety career in Cape Elizabeth in 1974. (Courtesy of Cape Elizabeth Police Department)
Joseph Thornton, who eventually became Tinsman’s supervisor at Scarborough Police Department, first met Tinsman decades ago, when Thornton was a teenager eager to learn more about a career in public safety. Thornton regularly did ridealongs with officers and sat in with dispatch.
“Immediately, I identified Greg as a legend,” Thornton said. He was always focused, always providing the exact information people needed and doing it kindly. “He’s the gold standard.”
He convinced Tinsman to take an open position in Scarborough in 2014, the last stop before he retired.
They stayed in touch professionally over the years. “We’d do our business and then spend more time on the phone talking and catching up,” Thornton said.
The public enjoyed chatting with Tinsman, too. Every month, people would call dispatch just to talk to him, Thornton said. Some dropped off cookies and other baked goods for him.
One year, one member of the public donated an extra turkey (presumably for the force to keep in the freezer until Thanksgiving).
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But by July, Tinsman was too tempted. He decided it was time for Thanksgiving. He orchestrated an elaborate meal, divvying out dishes but staking claim over the bird. “I’m an expert turkey cooker,” Thornton remembered him boasting.
Tinsman placed the bird in the oven in the morning of the celebration while they watched old reruns of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and by the early afternoon, officers started asking about the turkey. “Surely it should be done by now?” Thornton remembered asking.
But Tinsman was adamant. The timer hadn’t popped out of the turkey yet, so there’s no way it could be done. Another hour went by. “We’re like, ‘It’s been six hours, Greg, how is it not ready?”
Someone else checked, and the bird was upside down and half-burnt.
“He had the nickname with of us of Turkey,” Thornton said.
Tinsman had a way of making friends with just about anyone. He became close with Kristie McLaughlin, a dispatcher for Scarborough PD about half his age. She introduced him to fried pickles, hummus and sweet potato fries – all of which he decided were “the best things that ever existed” – and he treated McLaughlin’s children like they were his grandchildren.
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The pair formed an enduring friendship, one that partially revolved around football. They were teammates in the office pool, and they’d decide their weekly picks over a beer, usually at the Coppersmith Tavern, their favorite spot. Whenever they won – a rarity – they’d drink their winnings in beer, and if one of them got a pick wrong, they owed the other a drink. “We each had a debt of at least a keg and a half,” McLaughlin said.
She regularly went over to his house to play Wii bowling (he usually won). He kept a pitcher of iced tea on hand, which he didn’t drink, just because he knew McLaughlin did. And when she was pregnant, he switched the tea to decaffeinated without her asking.
Eric the sea gull devours a hot dog, his favorite food. (Photo courtesy of Joseph Thornton)
Tinsman’s refrigerator regularly had two items: beer, and packs and packs of hot dogs.
“It was weird,” McLaughlin said. “I had never seen him eat a hot dog.”
But they weren’t for him. They were for his pet seagull, Eric, who hung out on the roof of his house, waited patiently for him to return from work and rode up the driveway on the hood of his car.
Tinsmans’ friends don’t know what’s going to happen to this Joey Chestnut-esque bird, or how they’ll explain to him that his pal is gone.
McLaughlin and her kids plan to stop by and give him some hot dogs, for Greg’s sake.
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Tagged: cape elizabeth police department, Scarborough Police
Dana Richie is a community reporter covering South Portland and Cape Elizabeth. Originally from Atlanta, she fell in love with the landscape and quirks of coastal New England while completing her undergraduate. More by Dana Richie
