Keechant Sewell To Be Named First Black Feminine NYPD Commissioner

Mayor-elect Eric Adams is slated to nominate Keechant Sewell as the following NYPD commissioner after the present head of the police division retires on the finish of the yr, Adams stated in a press release Tuesday night.

Sewell is ready to turn out to be the primary Black lady to carry the put up of NYPD’s prime cop, main the nation’s largest police power. She has served because the Nassau County chief of detectives since Sept. 2020, the place she oversees a workers of about 350 folks. The NYPD has about 35,000 officers.

In a press release, Adams stated that Sewell is “a confirmed crime fighter with the expertise and emotional intelligence to ship each the security New Yorkers want and the justice they deserve. Chief Sewell will get up day by day laser-focused on preserving New Yorkers protected and bettering our metropolis, and I’m thrilled to have her on the helm of the NYPD.”

Sewell, initially from Queens, is a 22-year police veteran in Nassau County and is well-liked in her division, sources stated. Sewell has held quite a few management posts starting from heading main circumstances to hostage negotiation.

She very a lot impressed Adams throughout their conferences, sources informed NBC New York. Sewell beat out a number of candidates, together with former Seattle prime cop Carmen Greatest, who stated in a press release that she was “honored to have been a finalist and can stay targeted on charting the way forward for public security,” earlier than congratulating Sewell.

Adams, a former NYPD captain, promised to rent a girl as commissioner. Different candidates included Philadelphia Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, former Newark chief Ivonne Roman and NYPD Chief of Patrol Juanita Holmes.

The Police Benevolent Affiliation stated that they “welcome Chief Sewell to the second-toughest policing job in America. The hardest after all, is being an NYPD cop on the road.” The assertion went on to say that officers have “handed our breaking level. We have to repair that break in an effort to get our police division and our metropolis again on the right track. We sit up for working along with her to perform that objective.”

The announcement is anticipated to come back Wednesday morning when Adams speaks on the Queensbridge Homes in Lengthy Island Metropolis at about 8:15 a.m. She’ll start when Adams takes workplace Jan. 1.

Sewell, a Queens native, will probably be simply the third Black particular person to run the NYPD after Benjamin Ward and Lee Brown, who served within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. She is going to inherit a police division in flux. The NYPD has struggled to maintain crime down just a few years after attaining file lows.

The rise, notably in shootings and killings, is a part of a nationwide pattern within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, however police officers have additionally blamed state reforms that eradicated pretrial detention for a lot of expenses. There’s little proof that the reforms have resulted in additional crime.

Adams, the cofounder of 100 Blacks in Legislation Enforcement Who Care, an advocacy group that sought felony justice reform and spoke out in opposition to police brutality, has pledged new methods to battle crime, together with the return of foot patrols.

The information of the historic appointment comes after it was revealed present NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea and the division’s second in command, First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker, will end their full phrases and retire on the finish of the yr.

“Police Commissioner Shea and First Deputy Commissioner Tucker may have much more to say within the coming weeks as they focus on their public service and gratitude to the Metropolis and the women and men of the Division,” an NYPD spokesperson confirmed Dec. 2.

Administratively, the police commissioner is required to offer 30-days discover. With each Shea and Tucker stepping down sooner or later, Adams, himself a retired NYPD captain, was tasked with discovering replacements.

Shea took over as head of the NYPD in 2019 as the successor to Commissioner James O’Neill — and led the most important, and one of many oldest, police forces in the US.

“Born and raised in Sunnyside, Dermot Shea is a New Yorker via and thru. A 28-year veteran, he is aware of what it is wish to stroll a beat and lead a precinct. He helped construct the methods which have pushed crime to file lows. He is a confirmed change agent,” Mayor Invoice de Blasio tweeted the day he introduced he had chosen Shea as O’Neill’s alternative.

Previous to his position as commissioner, Shea, a 28-year veteran of the NYPD, was promoted to Chief of Detectives on April 16, 2018.

Earlier than serving as Chief of Detectives, Shea served as Chief of Crime Management Methods the place he was chargeable for analyzing citywide crime traits and growing the division’s crime-control plans and procedures. He additionally spent greater than 4 years as Deputy Commissioner of Operations.

Shea additionally served as Government Officer of the forty seventh Precinct and Detective Borough Manhattan South, and labored within the twenty fourth, forty sixth, and 52nd Precincts, in addition to the Narcotics Division.

Shea took over at a time when there was a spike in potential hate crimes, enhance in homelessness and officer morale was at a low. (Previous to his retirement, O’Neill was blasted by Police Benevolent Affiliation President Pat Lynch for firing Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer accused of utilizing a banned chokehold that led to Eric Garner’s loss of life in 2014.) He went on to face a rise in gun violence within the metropolis and different types of crimes in the course of the peak of the pandemic, together with within the subways.

In the meantime, Tucker started his profession with the New York Metropolis Police Division in 1969 as a Police Trainee and acquired specialised coaching from medical and substance abuse specialists to take part within the first NYPD sponsored school-based drug prevention schooling program.

Finally, Tucker grew to become a police officer in 1972 and was promoted to sergeant in 1987.

Tucker had a lot of roles throughout his a long time lengthy profession with the NYPD, in keeping with his Metropolis biography, together with police academy teacher, authorized advisor within the Workplace of the Deputy Commissioner of Authorized Issues; and Assistant Director of the Civilian Grievance Evaluate Board.

Tucker additionally served as Deputy Assistant Director for Legislation Enforcement Providers within the Mayor’s Workplace of Operations, and First Deputy Commissioner and Government Director of the Fee on Human Rights below Mayor Edward I. Koch. He was additionally Chief of Operations within the Workplace of the Manhattan Borough President. Through the Bloomberg administration, Tucker additionally served as Chief Government for College Security and Planning for the Division of Schooling.

In 1995, then President Invoice Clinton appointed Tucker Deputy Director for Operations within the Workplace of Group Oriented Policing Providers at the US Division of Justice. Then, in 2009, Tucker was nominated by then President Barack Obama, and confirmed by the US Senate, because the Deputy Director for State, Native and Tribal Affairs inside the White Home Workplace of Nationwide Drug Management Coverage.

Moreover, Tucker additionally directed analysis tasks on the Substance Abuse Technique Initiative at New York College and the Middle on Habit and Substance Abuse at Columbia College.