editorial
Mayor de Blasio not thinking outside the box
When he announced that NYPD
Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea, 50,
will take over as police commissioner
on Dec. 1, Mayor Bill de Blasio called
him “one of the best prepared incoming
police commissioners this city has
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, N 12 OVEMBER 8-14, 2019 BTR
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ever seen.”
The mayor then touted Shea’s personal
story of growing up in a cramped
one-bedroom apartment, the son of
Irish immigrants, who had to achieve
everything through hard work — and
his 28-year career clearly show he has
the right stuff.
Shea will join the likes of John
Francis O’Ryan, Thomas Francis
Murphy and Patrick V. Murphy as the
leader of the nation’s largest police
force, a tradition in which the majority
of commissioners in the last 120 years
have been of Irish descent.
The mayor is correct when he called
Shea’s appointment “an Americandream
story if there ever was one,” but
reformers see something else.
Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz
tweeted, “At a time when the relationship
between police and communities
couldn’t be worse — we chose another
white guy?”
City Councilman Donovan Richards,
the chair of the committee on
public safety, took a more nuanced ap-
Mayor Bill de Blasio made the safe, easy choice in selecting Dermot Shea (pictured) as the
new police commissioner. Photo by Mark Hallum
proach. After praising Commissioner
James O’Neill, who is leaving for a job
in the private sector, Richards questioned
the mayor’s decision-making
process.
“As we look towards a new commissioner,
I am concerned with the
direction we are going. The faces of
everyday offi cers is changing, as the
NYPD shifts to a majority minority department.
The top of the department
should refl ect that.”
The mayor looked into the faces of
the changing NYPD just last month
during a swearing-in ceremony at
the Police Academy in College Point,
where the latest class of 697 recruits
is the most diverse in city history with
more than 60 percent representing a
minority group.
Should de Blasio have followed the
path followed by Ed Koch in selecting
Ben Ward or David Dinkins appointing
Lee Brown by going with First Deputy
Commissioner Ben Tucker, who was
reportedly interviewed by the mayor
over the weekend?
Maybe that was just for optics —
and the mayor punted, telling NY1
“you will see an intensifi cation of diversity
in the leadership ranks in the
coming years.”
De Blasio, who is term-limited out
of offi ce in 2021, basically admitted
that he had made up his mind on picking
Shea a while back.
“I started watching Dermot in action
six years ago... And I became
convinced a long time ago that he
was the future of the NYPD,” de Blasio
said.
That is not thinking outside of the
box. It was an easy choice made by a
lame duck mayor.
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