The leader of the nation’s largest police department is stepping down.
Advertisement
Bratton’s departure was to be announced Tuesday afternoon by Mayor Bill de Blasio, according to a person with direct knowledge of the planned announcement.
During five years spanning two stints as the city’s top cop, Bratton has had an outsized impact on the New York Police Department.
Crime statistics in the city have never been better, but officer morale is an issue as is the level of distrust between officers and minorities, especially black New Yorkers. He added that the department has pushed training to deescalate violent encounters with the public and reduced use of force and civilian complaints.
Bratton is set to leave on September 1, which he said would be his exit from public service. “I would argue that we are farther along in New York City than most places”.
Widely seen as the face of USA policing, Bratton is a strong supporter of the “broken windows” theory, which holds that ignoring minor infractions such as vandalism and public drinking can lead to more serious crimes.
De Blasio denied any connection between the corruption probe or the protests and the commissioner’s departure. He came to fame as the police chief in Los Angeles, but Bratton also worked in Boston before coming to NY. After that, he worked on his two companies, The Bratton Group and Bratton Technologies. He had told friends that he meant to stay about two years and is leaving on his own accord, the officials said.
“It is now time for me to move on”, Bratton said, who plans to “pursue other opportunities”, not in government, but didn’t specify them during the presser. I thank him for his service to this City, and I extend best wishes to him on his future endeavors.
O’Neill said the department had sometimes “lost focus” and that the administration has been committed to changing “our posture and get on the right course” and “lowering crime but not at the expense of losing support”.
In his first tenure at the NYPD under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the early 1990s, he was credited with driving down crime with a widely copied, data-driven, crime-fighting strategy before his brash style made him an annoyance to the mayor, who forced him out.
James O’Neill, the new NYPD Police Commissioner, the biggest job in U.S. policing, didn’t take too long to burnish his Irish credentials. By 2009, the crime rate was 54% lower than it had been during his predecessor’s final year. Commissioner Bratton, who has come under heavy criticism in recent times of his handling for the city’s police force, said that the decision to step down was his own.
Though de Blasio was elected as a sharp critic of a police strategy known as stop-and-frisk – which raised concerns over racial profiling and privacy rights – he picked Bratton as a sign that he would balance reform and further drive down crime. “And whether it’s personal life, professional life, that’s something in my life I always try to do”.
Public Advocate Letitia “Tish” James: “For the second time in as many decades, Commissioner Bill Bratton has led New York City’s finest, keeping our City and communities safe”.
Advertisement
“We need the community to receive the police and police need to see that everyone’s not a criminal also”, said another.
