NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell Resigns: Surprising Move After Only 18 Months

New York on Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams named Sewell, a Long Island police official, as the city’s next police commissioner, making her the first woman to lead the nation’s largest police force. (AP Photo/Brittainy Newman)

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Grosse exclusivity of New York Post : the head of the NYPD, the first woman to hold this position, took everyone by surprise, including the mayor of New York, by resigning after only a year and a half. “I have made the decision to leave my position,” Keechant Sewell wrote in an email to the department on Monday afternoon and obtained by the tabloid. “Even as my term comes to an end, I will never stop defending and supporting the New York City Police, and I will always be an advocate for the people of New York City. »

New York Mayor Eric Adams appointed Sewell to head America’s top police department before he was sworn in on Jan. 1, 2022. In office since that day, Sewell has not publicly explained his decision to step down. functions.

“Since I joined you nearly a year and a half ago, we have faced significant tragedies, challenges and triumphs together,” Sewell wrote in his email to the approximately 55,000 New York police. York. “I have witnessed your compassion, your heroism and your selflessness on a daily basis. »

Anonymous sources told the Post that Sewell was tired of working for a mayor, himself an ex-captain of the NYPD, who would have encroached on his prerogatives and tried to control his decisions. “She was tired of being their puppet,” one source said of members of the mayor’s entourage.

To comment on Post “New York Police Commissioners have always had the power to promote rank-and-file police officers to the rank of inspector, and inspectors to higher ranks, but Ms. Sewell had to have those decisions approved by City Hall, according to reports. police sources. »

Adams thanked Sewell for his “steadfast leadership.”

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(Photo AP)