Could this insider really change the culture at MSP?

Baker makes a change... Gilpin out Mason in. Perhaps the Governor got the message finally.  But I'll wait to see if Mason really tracks down ALL the supervisors and rank and file member's who have perpetrated this colossal fraud.

From Victoria McGrane and Matt Stout at the Globe

Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday named Christopher S. Mason as the new colonel of the Massachusetts State Police, elevating a seasoned detective who investigated homicides on Cape Cod and most recently held the number two job on the force.

Mason, 56, succeeds Colonel Kerry A. Gilpin, whose two-year tenure was largely marked by the fallout from federal and state criminal investigations into overtime fraud within the department, including newly public allegations that supervisors regularly ordered rank-and-file troopers to skip overtime shifts that they were paid for.

Appearing at a State House news conference, Mason promised to pursue a series of changes he said will bring more transparency and diversity to a department that has been regularly criticized for lacking both.

Mason, who will take over the department Friday, said he believes that Gilpin set the department on the “right pathway,” but emphasized that he’ll pursue a range of changes.

That includes reshaping training at the State Police Academy to focus less on paramilitary training and more on what he called “modern policing skills,” such as de-escalating situations.

The department will also change its ethics training to focus specifically on the types of issues at the heart of the overtime scandal, he said, as well as expand its legal department to handle the thousands of public records requests it receives each year.

Mason has also been tasked with completing what officials say are ongoing internal investigations the department launched in the wake of the overtime scandal. Mason did not rule out identifying other problem troopers beyond the 46 the department has already referred to state and federal prosecutors.

“If we find supervisors were complicit in this, then we will pursue that investigation and we will act accordingly,” he said.

Baker said Mason has promised him specifically that he is “going to chase down” the internal probes to completion.

“On the issue of restoring trust, turning the page — however you want to call it — that work has got to get completed,” Baker said Wednesday. “Because I think for a lot of people, that’s a big hanging question out there.”

Baker has said he is open to changing state law to allow his office to tap someone from outside the department to be colonel, and has indicated it will be part of a legislative package he intends to file.

Mason said he understands the arguments for bringing in someone from outside the department’s ranks, but that now wouldn’t be the time.

“I believe strongly that at this time in the State Police history, that it’s important to have somebody from the inside,” Mason said. “I know I’m biased when I say that. But having an understanding and having been involved in the early outset of some of these reforms and having the ability to hit the ground running and drive those forward and complete those investigations, I think is important.”

Mason has served as commander of the department’s detective section and the Division of Investigative Services, and was promoted by Gilpin to deputy superintendent in January.

With his latest promotion, Mason’s salary of $233,889 will increase to $241,845.

As colonel, he will direct the department to “immediately review options” for promoting women and minorities within the department, according to Baker’s office.

Eighty-nine percent of the State Police force was white and 94 percent was male as of September 2018, department statistics show. And of 55 people who held posts in the department’s six top ranks at the time, 50 were white men and five were white women, including Gilpin.

The department has faced numerous discrimination complaints in recent years, and a federal jury last year found that the State Police had discriminated against a black recruit, denying him entrance to its academy because of his race.

The pledge to improve diversity was met with doubt by State Police Lieutenant Carmelo Ayuso, who is president of the Massachusetts Minority State Police Officers Association.

“We hear that from every colonel that comes in and nothing happens,” Ayuso said Wednesday. “It’s just rhetoric.

“When it comes to doing anything about the minority issues in the department, nothing gets done,” he added. “Our numbers just keep getting smaller.”