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It was solely an train, however the state of affairs was painfully acquainted: A white police officer had simply killed an unarmed Black man, and now the candidates to turn out to be New York Metropolis’s subsequent police commissioner wanted to indicate how they might handle the media.
Some went immediately into the technical particulars of what had occurred, Mayor-elect Eric Adams mentioned. However one candidate started by acknowledging the lack of the sufferer’s life.
“That made me sit up because she understood that there was a tragedy because a life was lost,” Mr. Adams mentioned. “That’s what we have to understand.”
The mock information convention was one take a look at in a monthslong choice course of, however Mr. Adams had discovered his candidate. On Wednesday, he launched Keechant Sewell, the 49-year-old chief of detectives for the Nassau County Police Division on Lengthy Island, as the primary lady to steer the New York Police Division and its 35,000 uniformed officers.
The appointment comes amid a push to remake policing from inside after final 12 months’s protests towards police brutality and racism. Mr. Adams, who vowed in the course of the marketing campaign to decide on a lady to steer the division the place he was an officer for 22 years, mentioned the way in which Chief Sewell dealt with the hypothetical state of affairs demonstrated what he referred to as an “emotional intelligence” that made her stand out.
“Those are the scenarios we’re going to be facing,” he mentioned. “Hopefully we don’t have a shooting like that, but if we do, I need the police commissioner to stand in front of the room and let New Yorkers know we’re going to be all right, because it’s not only substantive, it’s the perception, right?”
Wednesday’s announcement at Neighborhood Capability Growth, an anti-violence group in Lengthy Island Metropolis, the Queens neighborhood the place Chief Sewell was born, mirrored what Mr. Adams has mentioned will likely be a cultural shift for his administration, which is able to search to work extra with neighborhood organizations to provide the general public a higher position in serving to the police to scale back crime.
“In this city and this moment, I have come full circle,” Chief Sewell mentioned. “The N.Y.P.D. has an important role to play in making our communities safer, but we cannot do it alone.”
Chief Sewell is taking the helm of the Police Division at a second of deep uncertainty.
“There’s never been a time in my 51 years in this profession that was quite as problematic as this,” mentioned William J. Bratton, who served as police commissioner twice, most just lately from 2014 to 2016. “You have the most challenging police role in the country, bar none.”
Chief Sewell is predicted to play a vital position in placing the steadiness that Mr. Adams needs to realize between community-led security methods and conventional policing practices, together with some controversial ones that Mr. Adams plans to revive, like plainclothes police items to focus on unlawful weapons. Nevertheless it was unclear how a lot of a task she would play in steering the division from the outset: She faces a steep studying curve with simply two weeks left till inauguration.
He has additionally charged her with diversifying a division that has made strides however continues to be struggling to reflect the town’s inhabitants. Though the variety of Asian and Hispanic officers has risen in the course of the de Blasio administration, the pressure is just about 15 p.c Black, whereas the town’s inhabitants is roughly 25 p.c Black. Feminine officers make up about 18 p.c of the pressure.
Chief Sewell, who should retire as an officer and transfer from Lengthy Island to New York Metropolis to tackle the civilian place of commissioner, served 22 years within the Nassau County division, rising by way of the ranks in a wide range of assignments, together with narcotics and inner affairs. She was the primary Black lady named chief of detectives, overseeing a division of about 350 personnel.
She was effectively preferred amongst her colleagues and seen as a tough-but-fair chief of the detective bureau, mentioned John Wighaus, the president of the Nassau County Detectives Affiliation. In October, its members voted her Legislation Enforcement Individual of the 12 months.
“She leads by example, and she has great appreciation for the men and women of our department,” Mr. Wighaus mentioned.
The division noticed her potential early on, sending her in fall 2008 to the F.B.I.’s Nationwide Academy, a prestigious and aggressive coaching program for law-enforcement managers. She was a standout scholar, her counselor and classmates mentioned, and she or he was elected president of the category and gave the graduation speech.
“I found her to be absolutely remarkable,” mentioned Valerie Tanguay-Masner, who attended the academy whereas a member of the San Bernardino County sheriff’s workplace, a publish from which she has since retired.
“Keechant was very athletic, very energetic, very focused and driven on what it was that she wanted to do,” she added. “I believe that her integrity is absolutely above reproach. She was a shining star.”
Artwork Howell, a classmate who retired earlier this 12 months because the chief of police in Racine, Wis., mentioned that as a Black lady and a sergeant on the time, Chief Sewell was a uncommon determine within the academy. A lot of the different officers held increased ranks, and solely 26 of the 256 attendees have been ladies, he mentioned.
However he mentioned symbolism shouldn’t overshadow her {qualifications}. “She’s got a lot of substance,” he mentioned.
Monumental challenges await her in New York, the place relations between police and communities of colour have been strained for years and calls to shrink the Police Division predate the pandemic.
Maybe her largest problem will likely be overcoming doubts about her capability to steer a division that’s vastly bigger and bureaucratically extra advanced than Nassau County’s pressure of about 2,400 officers. As chief of detectives there, she has as many individuals beneath her command as the everyday precinct commander within the metropolis.
Incoming N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams’s New Administration
Faculties Chancellor: David Banks. The longtime New York Metropolis educator, who rose to prominence after making a community of public all-boys colleges, will lead the nation’s largest public school system because it struggles to emerge from the pandemic.
Police Commissioner: Keechant Sewell. The Nassau County chief of detectives will turn out to be New York City’s first female police commissioner, taking on the nation’s largest police pressure amid a disaster of belief in American policing and a troubling rise in violence.
She inherits a strained relationship with the Metropolis Council and State Legislature, which her predecessors criticized for enacting legal guidelines that have been aimed toward making the legal justice system fairer, however that previous commissioners say scapegoated cops, emboldened criminals and made the town much less secure. Gun violence, which reached a excessive for the last decade in 2020, stays increased than earlier than the pandemic.
On Wednesday, Chief Sewell sounded unfazed. On the information convention, she mentioned that those that doubted her ought to “come and talk to me in a year.”
Dr. Tracie Keesee, who was a Denver police officer for 25 years and a deputy police commissioner in New York, mentioned the difficulties dealing with the following police commissioner additionally current alternatives for reshaping the tradition and operations of the division.
The town has already begun experimenting with having social employees reply to some psychological well being calls that historically went to police and opened an Workplace of Neighborhood Security to provide communities extra say in how they’re protected. Dr. Keesee, a co-founder of the Heart for Policing Fairness, a public coverage nonprofit, mentioned there’s additionally room to root out inefficiencies in inner processes.
Frederick Brewington, a civil rights lawyer who has sought police reform in Nassau County, mentioned he believed that as police commissioner, Chief Sewell would have the ability to showcase strengths that she had not been in a position to show on Lengthy Island.
Had Chief Sewell been in command of the division, he mentioned, he anticipated that the county would have seen higher progress.
“There would have been an opportunity to see meaningful reforms had she been the police commissioner in Nassau County,” he mentioned.
Others described her as somebody who impressed them along with her confidence, sharp mind and eager listening and problem-solving abilities.
“There was no chink in the armor,” mentioned Jeffrey Knotts, a retired F.B.I. particular agent who was her counselor on the F.B.I. academy.
Paul Tonna, who first met Chief Sewell by way of a two-year management program he helps run at Molloy School on Lengthy Island, mentioned that she as soon as led a policing demonstration for attendees alongside embellished SWAT group and Ok-9 unit officers — a gaggle that Mr. Tonna famous was largely older white males.
“All of these guys with all these stars on their lapel, and Keechant absolutely commanded all of their respect,” he mentioned. “She is the real deal and an unbelievable force of nature.”
One of many contributors, Tracey Edwards, a member of Lengthy Island Advocates for Police Accountability, mentioned she has sought to enact reforms inside the police division in Nassau County however discovered the division reluctant to embrace change. “But she didn’t have a place in that resistance,” Ms. Edwards mentioned of Chief Sewell. “That to me says it all.”
Chief Sewell’s love of the town and her assorted legislation enforcement background will likely be a power as she takes on her new position, Ms. Tanguay-Masner mentioned.
“I think that everything that has happened in Keechant’s career up until today has prepared her for this challenge,” she mentioned.
Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett and Jack Begg contributed analysis.
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