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Mayor-elect Adams offi cially names Keechant
Sewell as NYPD’s fi rst female commissioner
BY DEAN MOSES
New York City mayor-elect
Eric Adams officially announced
Keechant Sewell as
the 45th NYPD Police Commissioner
during an early morning
press conference on Dec.
15, less than one month before
the Brooklyn borough president
takes office.
Sewell will make history
next year as the first woman to
lead the nation’s largest police
force and take the reins during
a time when the department
hopes to mend strained public
relations following the Black
Lives Matter protests and concerns
of rising crime in the Big
Apple.
Making the news public at
the Community Capacity center
in Queensbridge Houses, a Long
Island City neighborhood where
the current Nassau County
chief of detectives of 25 years
and incoming top cop grew up,
Adams beamed with pride as he
gushed about Sewell’s resume to
a legion of reporters.
“The chief of detectives for
the Nassau County Police Department,
the first Black woman
to hold that role — and now
she will make history again as
the first woman to become commissioner
of the largest police
department in our country, if
not the globe,” Adams said.
Directly below a mural of
Malcolm X, he revealed that
when he interviewed Sewell for
the position and inquired why
she wanted to join the NYPD,
she responded: “My entire public
safety career I was looking
for a mayor like you, but guess
what, your mayorship was looking
for a police commissioner
like me.”
“Your personal story and
the message motivates me as we
endeavor to provide New Yorkers
with the public safety they
need and the justice they deserve,”
Sewell said Wednesday.
“Queensbridge Houses is a part
of my soul. I wish my parents
were here to point out the building
Sewell shakes hands with officers.
and the apartment where
they began to give me a strong
sense of purpose, commitment
and confidence. To all the little
girls within the sound of voice,
there is nothing you can’t do
and no one you can’t become.”
This news comes hot on the
heels of several retirements
from the NYPD, including highranking
brass such as Chief of
Department Rodney Harrison
who has been tapped as the
Suffolk County top cop, while
current NYPD Commissioner
Dermot Shea and First Deputy
Commissioner Benjamin Tucker
TIMESLEDGER | Q 16 NS.COM | DEC. 24 - DEC. 30, 2021
are also exiting after extended
service.
Adams compared his search
for police commissioner to a
theory in quantum physics in
which you acknowledge the
existence of something and it
becomes apparent to you — and
he says that there has been so
much talent in plain sight but
has yet to be acknowledged.
“We have witnessed so many
women who have conducted
themselves in the professional
way, yet never received the opportunity
to do the job or the
higher level always sitting on
the bench, never allowed to get
in the game. That is going to
stop,” Adams said. “I made it
clear on the campaign trail, I
am going to find a woman police
commissioner and I was not
going to lower my standards. I
gave my team a difficult task
of finding someone with the
qualifications, the abilities, understanding
of policing and who
was on the ground.”
Adams shared he was more
concerned in a police commissioner
who he says has an emotional
intelligence, not just academics
and Ivy League school
material.
“How are you as a human
being? Tell me about your emotional
intelligence. A term we
don’t use often that is the criteria
to serve in an Eric Adams
administration. You must not
just be academically intelligent;
you must be emotionally intelligent,
and this is a personification
of emotional intelligence.
This amazing future police
commissioner standing here,”
Adams said.
He also discussed the success
of a crisis management
system, and the need for it to be
implemented throughout highrisk
areas in New York.
“We want to acknowledge
and put in place that public
safety is more than just police.
If you want to make our city
safer in the long run, it will require
a new ecosystem of public
safety,” the mayor-elect noted.
“That is what we are going for
and it’s going to partner with
the crisis management system,
clergy leaders, our tenant associations,
and other partners on
the ground and every agency in
this city is going to be part of the
team of making us safe and preventing
crime in a real way. So,
our new police commissioner
not only brings a diverse set of
experiences to this moment,
she exudes what it means to be
emotionally intelligent, calm,
collected, competent.”
Both Adams and Sewell underscored
that New York City is
at a pivotal moment as it faces
the challenges of public safety
and accountability, which both
stated, are not mutually exclusive
. Sewell promised that as she
takes the role of police commissioner,
she will follow in the
mayor-elect’s vision of working
with crisis management teams,
build community relations
and lead with emotional intelligence.
“I am forever grateful in
this city, in this moment, I have
come full circle and it is with
a humble heart and clear eyes
about the tasks and challenges
ahead that I accept the position
of New York City commissioner.
I have been immersed in policing,
in patrol law, to detective,
my experience as a hostage
negotiator with bringing transparency
and accountability to
policing up to and including
my role as chief of detectives. I
have watched and admired and
worked alongside the remarkable
members of the NYPD. It is
an honor and privilege to stand
with them now,” Sewell said.
Additional reporting by Ben
Brachfeld.
Read more on QNS.com.
Mayor-elect Eric Adams introduced his new police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, outside of
Queensbridge Houses. Photos by Dean Moses
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