Boston Police Commissioner and Suffolk University alumnus William Evans

William Evans, BS ’82, is slated to become Boston’s next police commissioner.

Evans, with 31 years on the Boston Police force, has served as acting commissioner since November, and newly inaugurated Mayor Martin J. Walsh has chosen him for the permanent appointment.

The commissioner chose his career path while a student at Suffolk University, he told Suffolk Magazine. He was deciding whether to follow his brother Paul into the Police Department or brothers John and James into the Boston Fire Department. “Evans’s classes at Suffolk broke the tie in favor of the police,” according to the alumni article “Boston Strong.”

“A lot of the things I learned there helped me,” he told the magazine. “In particular, how criminal justice worked, how the political system worked, and the social issues—drugs and alcohol—how they worked. It sort of rounded me out, and that made a big difference.”

As a police cadet, Evans took classes at Suffolk days and worked at the Police Department's District Four in the South End at night.

More recently, he has been involved in a Boston Police leadership course piloted in the Sawyer Business School in spring 2013.

In a statement ahead of announcing the appointment, Walsh said: “The Boston Police Department will be in great hands under the leadership of Bill Evans. He knows how to manage his team of talented officers, has the respect of the rank and file, and has proven his ability to defuse even the most difficult of public safety situations.”