After Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s surprise announcement that he will retire in September, Rev. Al Sharpton said he had “mixed feelings” about the sudden departure of the city’s top cop-but wants to meet “immediately” with his replacement, Chief of Department James O’Neill.
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In detailing the change in leadership, Mayor Bill de Blasio emphasized “continuity”, and Bratton highlighted a “seamless transition”.
O’Neill was intimately involved in using CompStat to help identify crime trends in neighborhoods and helped implement Bratton’s plans for new neighborhood policing models like having officers walk beats again and build relationships with community members.
New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton is resigning his post atop the nation’s largest police force.
It’s not clear when Bratton’s resignation would be effective.
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”. The New York Times noted that he would be taking a job in the private sector, “ending a 45-year career in public life that spanned the country, from Boston to Los Angeles, and that reshaped the image of what a police commander could be”.
“I’m honored to have this opportunity to further serve this great city and the world’s best police department”, O’Neill said. I thank Commissioner Bratton for his unwavering service to our City.
“We have a long way to go, but I don’t think any of us could have imagined a more productive 31 months”, de Blasio said.
At the press conference announcing Bratton’s retirement on August 2, 2016, O’Neill said he views the commissioner as a mentor.
O’Neill is 58-years old, separated, and the father of two adult sons.
The ousted administrator will be replaced by Chief of Department James O’Neill, officials say.
Some civil liberties activists and others cautioned on Tuesday that the new emphasis on neighborhood policing is little more than repackaging a limited concept.
“He didn’t have anything to do with it – he just happened to be the commanding officer at the time, ” a police source said. Quality of life policing is the idea that by heavily enforcing relatively more innocuous laws, like public urination and littering, will lead to increased respect for more serious laws.
The tensions between the mayor and police eased, but officers have been under scrutiny this summer as concern about police-minority relations has welled anew in New York City and elsewhere. “They’ll know the people calling 311, they’ll know the residents”, he said.
“I’m in full support of advocacy groups and everyone’s right to peacefully protest”, O’Neill said.
Bratton is also stepping down amid an ongoing federal corruption investigation involving high-ranking officers and City Hall demonstrations in which participants this week called for greater police accountability and Bratton’s firing.
He brought a prominence and political savvy to the nation’s largest police department that equipped him to deal with outsized expectations.
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By comparison, O’Neill is admired within the department, but unknown on the national stage.
