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NYC Mayor-Elect Adams Appoints First Female Police Commissioner

NYC Mayor-Elect Adams Appoints First Female Police Commissioner of NYPD

New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams named Keechant Sewell police commissioner, marking the first time a woman will lead the largest police department in the U.S.

Sewell, 49, is the Nassau County Chief of Detectives. The Queens native will replace Dermot Shea, a career NYPD cop appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in December 2019.

“I am ready,” Sewell said in a press conference on Wednesday at Queensbridge Houses, a public housing complex in Long Island City where she lived as a child. “I will have the backs of my officers, but they must have the backs of the public.”

Sewell graduated from FBI National Academy and served as lead chief negotiator and commanding officer for the FBI’s negotiation team before spending more than two decades at the Nassau County Police Department on Long Island. She pledged to drive down violent crime, focus on community policing and not overlook petty crimes, known as the “broken windows” theory espoused by former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. 

Standing next to Sewell, Adams called her “a personification of emotional intelligence.” Swatting away criticism that Sewell doesn’t have experience running a police force as large as New York City’s, Adams said he intentionally wanted to veer away from the approaches of the past.

“I need a visionary,” Adams said. “Someone who is ready to transform our police department.”

NYC Mayor-Elect Adams Appoints First Female Police Commissioner

Just over two weeks away from his inauguration, Adams has announced only one other major appointment: The selection of David Banks, a long time educator, as the city’s next schools commissioner. “I’m looking for quality over quantity,” Adams said Wednesday.

The choice of police commissioner is considered one of Adams most important picks. A former police captain who served in the NYPD for 22 years, Adams helped turn the race for New York City mayor into a referendum on public safety a year after nationwide Black Lives Matter protests spurred calls to defund the police. 

Safety dominated the mayor’s race as high-profile shootings in Times Square, hate crimes and subway attacks during the pandemic created a sense of unease in the city. Overall crime remains lower than in previous decades, but Adams zeroed in on the issue early in his campaign, telling voters that public safety was a prerequisite to economic recovery. He also came out against the defund the police movement, promising to reform the department from within.

Historic Choice

Adams vowed to hire a woman of color for the job early on. With the choice of Sewell, he reiterated that choosing a woman for the role was a symbol of how much untapped talent there is among female leaders. 

“They’re always sitting on the bench, never allowed to get in the game. That is stopping now,” he said, of hiring women in his administration. “I made it clear I was going to find a woman police commissioner. I was not going to lower my standards.”

Sewell also called out the historic nature of her appointment. 

“I stand here today because a man boldly and unapologetically made a decision to give women in policing an opportunity. Not a favor, but a chance to work with him, its citizens and the finest police department in the world,” she said. “I’m the first woman and third Black person in the NYPD’s 176-year history.”

His selection recalls a move made by former mayor David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor. Dinkins selected a Black man from outside of the force to lead the department in 1989, a time when crime was rising, the crack epidemic spiked, and the NYPD was more than 75% White. 

Challenges Ahead

Adams was beaten by police as a teenager and went on to become an officer and founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, a group created to improve relationships between cops and the communities they police. Adams has called for the revival of a plainclothes anti-gun unit that was shuttered over complaints of misconduct and more officers on the streets and in transit stations.

He and his police chief will be charged with repairing the public image of a department that was accused of using excessive force in response to the protests against police brutality after George Floyd’s murder, and whose officers’ overtime stretches the city budget well beyond its allocation. Adams has vowed to cut overtime pay in half. 

The new administration also will have to address concerns by police officers who say that the department has veered off course.

Patrick Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association, which represents the department’s rank-and-file officers, said cops welcomed Adams’s selection of Sewell.

“New York City police officers have passed our breaking point,” Lynch said in a statement. “We need to fix that break in order to get our police department and our city back on course.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.