BOSTON (WHDH) - As people continue to demand justice and police reform across the nation, so too are officers with the Boston Police Department pushing for change.
The Minority Officers Union wants young people from the city to join the force and police their own homes saying it will help reform the department.
“I think it makes sense that we create a preference for these young men and women,” Sargeant Eddy Chrispin, a 21-year veteran of the Boston police force said.
One reform Chrispin said he would like to see in his department is more officers who’ve grown up here in the city.
“There should probably be a certain percentage of every class that’s going into the academy to be kids who are recruited, who grew up in the city, graduated from Boston Public high schools,” he said.
Chrispin, who’s also president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement officers, grew up in Mattapan and says he knows first hand the value of police officers with deep roots in the community.
“I show up if there’s one person in that group who’s creating a disturbance, that one person can deescalate the situation because they know me. Like, ‘Oh that’s Ed. He grew up around the way.”
Chrispin said recruits who grow up here should get as much consideration as military veterans currently receive.
“It can’t just be about people who went to war coming back and policing neighborhoods that a lot of them are unfamiliar with,” he explained.
As for defunding police, Sgt. Chrispin said he does not think the number of officers should be reduced. But, he believes more resources for education and dealing with social ills have always been needed.
“Those are not new things,” he said. “I don’t know now why it is that we are all of a sudden concerned and want to dedicate resources to, We should have been doing that a long time ago.”
All the officers he knows — regardless of race — were horrified about George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, but Chrispin said racism in police departments is just a reflection of our society in general.
“We know systemic racism exists because I tell people I take off my uniform and I may have on a pair of jeans and a hoodie, I walk into a store, I get followed.”
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