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NYC’s Top Cop, Manhattan DA Try to Mend Rift on How to Cut Crime

NYC’s Top Cop, Manhattan DA Try to Mend Rift on How to Cut Crime

New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg met amid an apparent rift over their approaches to public safety.

Sewell, who like Bragg has been on the job for just over a week, sent an email to about 36,000 members of the New York City Police Department late last week saying she was “very concerned” about new policies Bragg wants to implement as the borough’s top prosecutor. 

NYC’s Top Cop, Manhattan DA Try to Mend Rift on How to Cut Crime

Bragg has instructed his prosecutors to seek jail time only for those who commit the most serious offenses, like murder, sexual assault and major economic crimes, but not for misdemeanors, including resisting arrest. In her email, Sewell said that would send a message that could “invite violence” against officers. 

Bragg also directed prosecutors not to seek time behind bars for gun possession cases without an accompanying charge. Sewell said that would let people illegally possess firearms “without consequence” and could jeopardize the safety of officers and the public.

NYC’s Top Cop, Manhattan DA Try to Mend Rift on How to Cut Crime

The two and senior staffers met “to discuss issues of mutual concern,” Bragg and Sewell said in a joint statement Tuesday.

“The meeting was to share ideas and examine policy differences that could be clarified and harmonized toward a common vision that acknowledges the need for criminal justice reform and alternatives to incarceration,” they said in the statement.

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