On Wednesday, state police officials announced that Col. Kerry Gilpin, the head of the Massachusetts State Police, will step down. During Gilpin’s two-year tenure, the state police was rocked by multiple scandals. In one instance, multiple state troopers were found to be fraudulently clocking overtime hours for shifts that they never worked. In another, Dana Pullman, the former president of the union that represented the state police, was indicted on federal charges for spending the union’s money on personal expenses.

Andrea Cabral, a former public safety secretary and Sheriff of Suffolk County, said that she sympathizes with the agency Gilpin inherited. Cabral said that while the scandals were publicly revealed during her tenure, they are a symptom of the state police as an institution rather than Gilpin’s leadership.

“When you’re elevated to the position of colonel, a two-year tenure can take a lot out of you, especially under the circumstances that she faced,” Cabral said during an interview with Boston Public Radio on Thursday. “It just seems perfectly reasonable that she felt she could accomplish [what she could] in the two years and that she wants to move on.”