The resignation of NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell had barely landed on the desk of Mayor Eric Adams before the speculation began: what led her to decide to step down? Former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton is one of the few who knows first-hand the pressures of the job that Sewell had to deal with on a daily basis. He appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to offer his educated guess about the resignation.
“I’m reminded somewhat of the comment of Princess Diana about her marriage to Prince Charles, that there were three people in the marriage,” Bratton analogized with Berman and Riedel. “Well, it sounds like, in the police commissioner’s office, there were half a dozen people in that office, so it was kind of crowded. I had the opportunity, ironically, last week I had dinner with the commissioner… and there was no hint of what happened yesterday… I think, if she had been left to her own devices, she would have done an even better job, but there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen in the NYPD at the moment, and Mayor Adams is going to have to sort out who’s running the police department.”
Bratton says that the issue of who actually calls the shots at One Police Plaza may have irked Sewell considerably. “The mayor has an opportunity here, with her stepping aside, to make it much clearer going forward who is going to run the police department. Is it going to be the deputy mayor for public safety? Is it going to be the mayor?... It was noticeable in her comments, the email she sent out to the men and women of the department, there was no reference made whatsoever of the mayor, which was really very interesting, in that regard.”
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