William Bratton’s resignation was announced Tuesday after his second stint as New York’s police commissioner, but he’s leaving behind a legacy of crime fighting that has radically changed life in the city.
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Bratton was appointed NY police chief in December 2013 for a second time, tasked by de Blasio with keeping crime at historic lows but also repairing frayed relations with ethnic minorities.
New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton will step down in September, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced during a Tuesday news conference. Bratton is leaving the nation’s largest police force, after a tenure.
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”.
Bratton also oversaw the Boston and Los Angeles police departments and was briefly considered by then-British Prime Minister David Cameron for the London police chief job in 2011.
“I think Bill Bratton is doing an extraordinary job as police commissioner”, de Blasio said at a news conference last week.
He’s been a NY cop since 1983, when he began as a patrolman with the old transit police department.
The ousted administrator will be replaced by Chief of Department James O’Neill, officials say.
The 33-year officer was born and bred in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and when he’s not wearing the badge, he’s often on two wheels – cruising on his bicycle or motorcycle.
It calls on officers to spend more time introducing themselves to shop owners and community members so they can collaborate on reducing crime. As part of the outreach, specialized “neighborhood coordinating officers” even pass out their cellphone numbers.
“Policing is never done; it’s always an unfinished business”, Bratton said in his remarks.
NY has tried various iterations of that idea over the decades.
The departure of Bill Bratton is the fall of Saigon for American policing. O’Neill has been with the department since the 1980s and was described by the mayor as the “architect” of the department’s community policing program.
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.
He took the opportunity to explain his concept of neighborhood policing to people in Astoria.
And in a tough world, friendliness only goes so far. “In each and every one of them I’ve gone to, people tell us ‘we want policing that’s something that’s not done to us, but done with us.’ And now this is what’s happening and it seems to be working”.
Next, he served as commanding officer of the Office of the Police Commissioner, and was promoted to chief of patrol in May 2014.
Sharpton said that he can not yet make a judgment on O’Neill, a generally well-regarded career NYPD cop, because he does not know him well.
“They could be nicer”, he said. He had previously led the Boston Police Department.
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“She really was the one who taught me the ideals of what good cops should aspire to”, he said, as his mom, Helen, sat in the front row of the City Hall Blue Room for her son’s appointment.
