Bratton, 68, will be replaced by the Police Department’s top uniformed officer, Chief James P. O’Neill, a veteran NY commander who became an officer in 1983 and has a long relationship with Bratton, dating to their time together in the city’s old transit police force.
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Bratton, who led the department in the 1990s before returning in 2014, noted that he was leaving at a fraught point for police-community relations but said he felt confident in the department’s future.
He began his career patrolling Hub streets in 1970 before climbing the ranks to lead BPD, before going to NY, then the Los Angeles Police Department before ending his career back in the Big Apple. Bratton’s policing policies have greatly impacted the quality of life in Boston, Los Angeles and here in NY.
The commissioner’s salary is $219,773, according to de Blasio spokeswoman Monica Klein.
When he takes over next month, O’Neill will inherit challenges that vexed his well-known predecessor, William Bratton, who announced that he is quitting to take a job with a corporate consulting firm.
“This time, I will have a key to the city”, Bratton said.
“The unfinished business here is… how do we take this extraordinary organization… forward to meet the issues that America is facing today – the mistrust of the criminal justice system, particularly by our minority communities, the immigration issues that are so paramount at the moment, the anger directed at our muslin community”, Bratton said Tuesday.
City Councilman Vincent J. Gentile (Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Dyker Heights): “It is with sadness that I learn of Commissioner Bratton’s departure from the NYPD”.
“I wish I had words for what this man has achieved”, de Blasio said, placing his hand on Bratton’s shoulder as he introduced him.
Bratton says he told Mayor Bill de Blasio on July 8 that he would be retiring in mid-September.
Bratton had previously occupied the commissioner’s office between 1994-1996 under the administration of Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, an administration under which there were notorious cases of police brutality.
Bratton said expertise he built and evolved during his time at the NYPD, like plans for mass shootings and terrorism, is desperately needed as companies look to protect their employees.
“If your name wasn’t called, that’s a good thing because all those people had warrants for their arrest”, Green remembered Bratton told the group.
Bratton said that among his accomplishments during his most recent tenure as NYPD commissioner were bringing down crime, better preparing the force for a potential terrorist attack and improving the safety of officers through the purchase of better equipment. Critics say it disproportionately affects the poor and minorities.
NY had its lowest crime rate in 2014 since records began, an incredible transformation since the drug wars of the 1990s. Further details are expected to be revealed during an afternoon news conference.
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This story has been corrected to show that Garner and officers Liu and Ramos died in 2014, not 2012.
