The demotion of a longtime Boston Police officer tapped to serve on the state police accountability panel is raising concerns among many in the law enforcement world who question the motive behind the move.
Some warned it could impact public trust, force morale and the ability of the oversight body to do its job effectively.
“It could pose a huge challenge to the public having trust in this commission — and certainly call into question the level of political influence in these appointments,” said Tom Nolan, a criminologist and former Boston police lieutenant.
Former Deputy Superintendent Eddy Chrispin joined the Boston Police Department in 1999 and rose through the ranks serving in various roles within the department. Along the way, he took on a leadership position with the state minority law enforcement group, eventually serving at the group’s leader. Former Commissioner William Gross, the city’s first Black top cop, promoted Chrispin to command staff shortly before leaving office
In May, Chrispin was appointed to the state Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission. He
told the Boston Globe that, when he refused to step down from the panel at the request of his boss, Commissioner Michael Cox, he was removed from the group of high-ranking officers who help run the force.
Cox has so far been silent on the matter, but several entities have questioned, or come out strongly against, that decision, including: the
POST Commission itself; the Latino emergency responders’ social group, LLEGO Boston; the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers, the organization Chrispin once led; MAMLEO’s parent organization, the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers; and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who appointed Chrispin to the panel.
Mayor Michelle Wu expressed support for the move Tuesday, affirming Cox’s right to pick his own command staff and to keep its members from serving on the state oversight panel.
Others within the wider law enforcement orbit are questioning the decision.
“Having a member of the command staff of the Boston Police Department on the Post Commission seems to make perfect sense, and it is in compliance with the statute that enabled the POST Commission,” Nolan said.
He called the situation “a head-scratcher” since Chrispin, a Black man and Haitian immigrant, appears to be highly respected.
“What’s being conveyed to the public here is that there is some kind of turbulence within the police department of a political nature that has resulted in the demotion of someone who, from public accounts that I’ve read, is widely seen as a role model for younger, junior officers of color in the Boston Police Department as well as members of the community,” Nolan said.
Michael Gennaco of the California-based law enforcement consulting firm OIR Group said he knows multiple police leaders and members of command staffs who have served in other roles. He considers it a plus.
“I think that is right in line with what you’d want an executive to be doing,” Gennaco said. “I think it provides them an opportunity to use other talents and in capacities that can benefit statewide organizations,”
A person close to the matter who declined to speak on the record suggested that Chrispin many have failed to ask or notify Cox of his appointment to the state panel.
Wu hinted at that in her interview earlier this week.
“My understanding from the commissioner is that the knowledge that Sergeant Detective Chrispin would be on POST did not happen until much later in the conversation after that nomination and appointment had been made,” she said.
Nolan said, even if that were the case, the appropriate action would be an admonishment. A demotion, he said, is akin to “swatting a mosquito with a sledgehammer.”
