Leading Bay State law enforcement officials say Dorchester native William J. Bratton – the New York City top cop who announced his resignation yesterday – was a legendary innovator whose “revolutionary” community policing strategies are now used nationwide.
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Bratton, who led the department in the 1990s before returning in 2014, noted that he was leaving at “a challenging time for police in America and NY, even though all indicators are pointing in the right direction”.
“When people know the name of their officer they feel that their immediate neighborhood”, the mayor said.
Bratton said he’s stepping down in September to work in the private sector, and detailed what he sees as his accomplishments during his second stint at the job.
Along the way, O’Neill became an advocate for what he calls the “neighborhood policing model”. This type of policing evaluates officers on how they handle themselves, rather than how many arrests they make. “And there has never been a time American policing history when that is more important now”. “We have reduced stop-and-frisk by phenomenal amounts – said it couldn’t be done – but we continued to reduced crime at the same time”, Bratton said.
In a 2015 TEDx Talks appearance, O’Neill acknowledged how hard it is to promote police-community relations in the wake of incidents such as the police killing of Eric Garner.
“The mayor knew he had his man at NYPD and there wasn’t a reason to look elsewhere”, said a spokesman for de Blasio in an email.
“I both very strongly disagree and agree with Mr. Bratton”, Sharpton said.
The next commissioner began his career in the NYC Transit Police Department in 1983.
He was transferred to the fugitive enforcement division and reportedly came close to quitting in 2013 before Bratton encouraged him to stay on the force.
Bratton will leave the post in mid-September in order to assist O’Neill in the transition.
Chief O’Neill holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government and a Master of Public Administration degree from John Jay College. He recounted how his 18-year-old son was recently stopped and questioned by police for playing “Pokemon Go” in a Bronx park.
“He really legitimized the MBTA Police Department”, Green said.
The group, which has connections to the Black Lives Matter movement, had pointed to, among other things, a federal probe into the New York City police department.
Chief James O’Neill speaks at the re-dedication ceremony to honor Police Officer Scott Gadell in Far Rockaway, Queens on June 29, 2016.
He brought a prominence and political savvy to the nation’s largest police department that equipped him to deal with outsized expectations. During his most recent tenure, crime has been at record lows, and I have been proud to work with Commissioner Bratton to usher in new technologies, such as body-worn cameras and ShotSpotter, to improve criminal justice policy.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s swift appointment of Bratton in 2014 was a positive sign to many in the business community, some of whom feared a softer approach to crime from the self-proclaimed progressive.
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By comparison, O’Neill is admired within the department, but unknown on the national stage.
