City councilors and community members gathered at City Hall last Wednesday to honor former Deputy Superintendent Eddy Chrispin, who retired from the Boston Police Department after more than 26 years on the job.

A former president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers (MAMLEO) and founding member of the Haitian-American Law Enforcement Community, Chrispin was lauded by his former colleagues on the job as well as civic leaders active in Boston’s Black community.

“When he was up in the Grove Hall community, Eddy was one of the first officers that was really involved in community policing,” said Sister Virginia Morrison, executive director of the Grove Hall Neighborhood Development Corporation.

Morrison noted that Chrispin has joined the board of her CDC and helped the organization in its efforts to improve the area. In recent years, as people with substance abuse addiction began occupying the municipal parking lot in the area, Chrispin helped manage the situation.

“Prior to retirement, Eddie was in that municipal parking lot helping to take care of that situation,” Morrison said. “If you talk about a police officer, you might say he’s an officer, sergeant, captain, deputy superintendent, whatever — Eddie was always the community officers’ officer. He was a community person. He talked to our youth. He worked with our youth — and it wasn’t just the good ones.”

District 7 Councilor Miniard Culpepper, who is pastor at the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, said Chrispin was instrumental in reducing gang violence in the Black community.

“For me, it’s bitter and sweet because we hate to lose him on the police department,” he said. “I can’t call him as a police officer anymore. But the sweet part is that he’s going to be in the street with me fighting on the outside now.”

Chrispin’s fights weren’t just against criminal activity. As head of MAMLEO, he fought for the rights of Black and Latino officers in a department that for decades engaged in patterns of discrimination and disparate treatment of officers of color. His commitment to criminal justice reform at times put him in the crosshairs of police brass. Last year Chrispin was demoted from his role as a deputy superintendent after he was appointed to the Police Officer Standards and Training board, a state-mandated entity responsible for ensuring officers and departments are held accountable for illegal or unethical activity.

Chrispin’s demotion drew protests from Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and local elected officials and community members. But Mayor Michelle Wu stood by Police Commissioner Michael Cox’s decision.

In his remarks at City Hall last Wednesday, Chrispin made no mention of his demotion, but instead said it was time for him to move on and pledged to remain involved in community work.

“I know for me, policing is not about just law enforcement,” he said. “It’s really about engaging with people, regardless of what the circumstances are. As someone who started off as a social worker, I know firsthand that a lot of the people that police engage and interact with, they end up in those situations based on socioeconomic conditions, for the most part.”

Chrispin told the city councilors, community members and police officers gathered at City Hall that he believes the city should invest more in crime prevention, echoing a theme many in Boston’s Black and Latino communities have sounded in recent years.

“One of the things I always say is that if a young person commits a crime ... we decide that we are going to incarcerate them,” he said. “We never say there’s not enough money to spend to incarcerate somebody. But at the same time, we always lack the means and ability to invest in young people at the early stage of their lives.

“If we’re going to fix this thing that we call crime, that everybody battles with, dysfunction, whatever it is that you want to call it, we have to invest in young people. We have to invest in families, not on the back end when they, unfortunately, hurt somebody, generally, who is somebody from their communities.

“So, I know I’m walking away from policing. I’m not walking away from engaging and dealing with some of the social issues we deal with. I just felt I was at a point in my career where this was no longer sustainable. As much as I love community, it was no longer fulfilling to me, not in that uniform.”

At-large Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune said she is looking forward to working with Chrispin in whatever post-policing role he takes on next.

“There are so many people in this room and outside of this room who owe a debt of gratitude to you for your mentorship, how to make sure we are thinking about and always doing the work of community policing and really centering the needs of all our residents,” she said. “We know that this is not goodbye. We know that you are still going to be centered in the work.”