YARMOUTH – Today (December 8) is Steven G. Xiarhos 61st birthday, and as a bittersweet present to himself he is retiring as the Deputy Chief of the Yarmouth Police Department after working in the department for 40 years.
Friday was his last day of work. Today is his last official day as a member of the department.
Xiarhos, a Republican, is considering a second career in politics. “I want to serve in a different way,” he said.
He has formed a committee that would help him run for State Representative from Barnstable’s Fifth District. The current occupant of the seat, Randy Hunt, (R-Sandwich) has announced that he is not running for reelection. “I will be making an announcement in February,” said Xiarhos.
“The reason why [a run for office] would be to continue public service,” he said. “After 40 years of public service, I think would be helpful in the next level of public service.”
“I want to serve in a different way.” – Steven G. Xiarhos, retiring police officer, considering a run for the Massachusetts State House.
He described politics as “similar to policing, as policing can be a controversial subject.” Police are trained to “stay above the line. We can be better than that,” he said of getting into deeply divisive issues.
And yet Xiarhos has very strong and public opinions on some very divisive issues: the flag, national anthem and NFL protests; as well as support for America’s two simultaneous undeclared wars. He once wrote a very public letter to President Trump about the NFL National Anthem protests.
But he said he plans to “stick to local issues and not let what’s going on in Washington affect me.”
It will be an interesting challenge for someone who is very proud to have met President Trump more than once. He also met President Obama, and he is proud of that too.
The reason he met both presidents is because of his direct connection to American foreign policy.
His son, Nicholas, was killed while serving in the Marines in Afghanistan in 2009 when he was 21 years old.
“Losing Nicholas and sharing that loss with the world put me on a different level,” he said. “It propelled me to meet the president,” he said. It’s an honor, he said, “but it’s also bittersweet. It’s because you lost your son,” he said.
Since that time, he has become perhaps the most well-known police officer on Cape Cod. And on this, a different kind of bittersweet day, his last officially as a member of the Yarmouth Police Department, he is thinking of his next step while reminiscing about a career that he loved.
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