Devlin in May 1993. Photograph: courtesy of Trisha Devlin

On September 20th, 1988, Thomas Devlin, an officer of the Boston College Police Department (BCPD), responded to a late-night emergency call from Edmond’s Hall, a nine-story dormitory on Lower Campus: A canister of tear gas had been discharged in the ventilation system, and 800 students were rushing the exits, some jumping from second-story windows. Devlin, who was an emergency medical technician, was one of the first on the force to arrive, scouring the gas-filled corridors and treating students. He remained on the scene for hours.

Devlin died on April 6 of this year, at the age of 51. He’d spent the last 16 of his 21 years on the BCPD fighting infections, asthma, and the punishing side effects of steroid treatments and chemotherapy made necessary by the injuries his lungs sustained from the searing fumes that September night.

“Tommy had no idea how much damage was being done to his lungs at the time,” says BCPD lieutenant Fred Winslow, a longtime friend. The military-grade chemical gas in the canister, which was later determined to have been stolen from a local armory, was “many hundreds of times stronger” than the pepper gas that police use for crowd control, he says, and it burned more than 65 percent of Devlin’s lungs. “But even if he’d known, he would not have left that building,” says Winslow. “He loved this job, and he loved those students, and he would have done the same thing a hundred times.”

In the two decades since the tear gas incident, according to BCPD captain Maggie Connolly, no one has come forward with information about the crime. Over the years, there have been investigations, “but we knew Tommy had no desire to prosecute, and we always respected that.” To Devlin, “this was just a stupid prank gone wrong,” Connolly says, “and Tommy, of all people, loved to play a good prank.”

He was known around the office for his quick wit and Cheshire-cat grin, says Winslow, who gave the eulogy at Devlin’s funeral. “Tommy was a big fan of Super Glue. . . . Basically, if there was a big red button that said, ‘don’t push this,’ Tommy’d go and push it.”

As a child growing up in Blackstone, Massachusetts, recalls Devlin’s younger sister, Mary Wright, “Tommy was all mischief all the time.” The third of four children, he “did everything in extremes,” she remembers: Short jogs became all-day excursions; “real” popcorn required a trip to the movie theater; once, a quick solo trip in a dinghy ended with a Coast Guard rescue in a shipping lane. “My parents,” she says, “always thought he’d end up on the other side of the law.”

After high school, however, Devlin took a job as a security officer at the Wrentham State School, a facility for the developmentally disabled. “I just remember he had such a gift with people,” says Wright. On his days off from Wrentham, he’d bring home some of the residents to his parents’ house for a meal and a visit, she recalls. “First it was one person, then four or five. Many of them had never left the institution.”

Devlin’s job at Wrentham State also introduced him to a young mental health attendant named Patricia King, the woman he would marry and with whom he’d spend the rest of his life. “His sun rose and set around her and their daughter,” says BCPD officer John Moir, who for years commuted to work with Devlin. “On the way home, he’d make me stop . . . so he could buy flowers for his Trish,” Moir recalls, and when Devlin talked about his daughter, Christine (Rutledge) Warren ’01, M.Ed.’04, “his whole face would beam.”

Devlin graduated from the Massachusetts State Police Academy in the early 1980s and in 1983 joined the Boston College police force. His combination of charisma, accessibility, and empathy quickly distinguished him on the job, says Winslow. He notes that “everyone who comes out of police academy wants to make that first big arrest,” but that Devlin took a different tack. “Tom knew how to get through to kids blowing off steam. He made real relationships.”

Campus Ministry’s Anthony Penna, CSS, remembers Devlin as the first police officer who ever walked a student into his office. Occasionally, Devlin would show up alone to talk about the best way to handle a situation. “He never mentioned these trips to other people,” says Penna, “he just did it.”

In the years following the gas canister incident, Devlin fought through illness many times to return to his job at Boston College, where he continued to respond to emergency calls. In 1999, a fire in another campus dorm sent him to the hospital with smoke inhalation. “We offered him retirement and every creature comfort in the world, nine or 10 times,” says Leo Sullivan, the University’s vice president for human resources. “But Tom would never take it.”

After his initial lung injuries, which doctors had predicted would be crippling, Devlin had begun mountain biking to speed his recovery, completing several 50- and 100-mile charity rides during the 1990s, and occasionally commuting the 50-odd miles from home. “He’d ride to work in the morning, then I’d go pick him up,” his wife recalls. The only thing he loved more than biking was reading, she says. “Sometimes he’d stick a book in his pocket to read when he stopped for a drink.”

In 1993, Devlin helped found BCPD’s bike patrol unit and took repair courses to maintain the fleet, which grew from two to 12 bicycles during his time on the force. For someone like Devlin, who loved the football games and senior week events that many other officers dread, a bike was the perfect vehicle, says BCPD Chief Robert Morse. More important, says Morse, the bikes “got us out of the cruisers and made us more mobile and accessible.”

Two months after his passing, Devlin’s wife Trisha sat on her back porch in Franklin with her limping beagle, Kelsey. “He tore a ligament jumping onto Tom’s hospice bed,” she said. “Dogs seemed to take to Tom just like people did.”

She described how, in 2004, Devlin finally agreed to retire. Once a muscular five foot seven, he had become bloated and weak at a mere five feet because of prolonged medication. For the last three and a half years of his life, he often needed a ventilator to breathe.

“As sick as Tom got, he was never bitter,” she said, “and he never stopped making the most of his time.” On good days, she would carry his ventilator to the car and they would drive to a local trail for a walk. On bedridden days, he’d prop a police scanner on his nightstand. “If he could find a way to be involved, he did it,” his wife said. “He never wanted to miss anything.”

Read more by Cara Feinberg