“But I want to hear from them what they want from us.”īut only when Commissioner Sewell faces difficulties that lie at the heart of the criticisms the department faces - over accountability, transparency, discipline and its treatment of people of color - will a more complete image of her come into view, said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia University who has studied policing in the city. “There are times when we go into a community and we tell them what we can bring them,” she said. “What’s not been addressed is how this administration is going to protect New Yorkers from racial profiling, from hyperaggressive policing, from police abuse and civil rights violations and from a lack of accountability by law enforcement,” said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.Ĭommissioner Sewell said she was continuing to assess possible areas of improvement, but added that she plans to focus more on neighborhood outreach. Several advocates of police reform said they are waiting to see if their concerns become clearer priorities. The department, like many across the country, has also deeply struggled to rebuild trust with some residents. He said she was able to “get across to the rank-and-file” - an important step for an outsider. Though she had gone from supervising about 350 detectives on Long Island to more than 35,000 uniformed officers and 15,000 civilian staff in the city, her poise stood out to some almost immediately.Ĭhief Elton Mohammed, who has been on the force for nearly three decades, said that the commissioner’s remarks at Detective Rivera’s funeral offered a window into her possible strengths as a leader. During a news conference that night, she briefly went off script to express solidarity with officers as they stood on a balcony at the hospital, waiting for news on Officer Mora’s condition. Three weeks later, she stepped outside another event to take a phone call and learned that the two officers in Harlem had been shot. Adams to NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital after an officer was struck by a bullet on New Year’s Day while sleeping in his car. Hours after she officially started the job, she traveled with Mr. In an interview, Commissioner Sewell said that she wants her time as the department’s leader to be evaluated by how she addresses both concerns over safety and what she called the “conditions that cause fear.”Ĭommissioner Sewell was thrown immediately into the fray. At the same time, the relationship between the police and some communities in the city remains fraught, with progressive politicians and activists continuing calls to defund or reform the department.
The steady toll of shootings in some neighborhoods, including an incident where an 11-month-old was shot in the Bronx a spate of attacks involving Asian American victims and the killing of the two officers have contributed to elevated anxiety over public safety. The city and its new mayor are grappling with an increase in gun violence that began early in the pandemic and has remained higher than the historic lows of 20. The moment underscored the challenging landscape into which Commissioner Sewell stepped last month. And it was not that I was crying out of sadness, but it was almost like I heard something break through - and there was Keechant Sewell.” Sewell was plucked from a comparatively obscure position in the Nassau County Police Department by Mayor Eric Adams. And for at least some in the pews, her performance began to answer questions about her readiness for the job: Ms. The seven-minute eulogy mixed warm recollections of Detective Wilbert Mora’s life and aspirations with expressions of grief shared in his relatives’ native Spanish.įor Commissioner Sewell, the first woman to lead the largest police force in the nation, the remarks at the funerals of Detectives Mora and his partner, Jason Rivera, carried the weight of longstanding tradition. And for the second time, she was paying tribute to an officer who had been killed in the line of duty. Patrick’s Cathedral was Keechant Sewell, who had been the commissioner of the New York Police Department for one month and one day.
But during an emotional eulogy just over an hour into the second of two funerals for police officers shot to death last month in Harlem, tears began to run down her face. Detective Felicia Richards did not expect to cry.