NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell resigns after year and a half on the job

NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell has announced her resignation after a year and a half leading the nation’s largest police department.

“I have made the decision to step down from my position,” Sewell said in an email to NYPD staff sent shortly before 4:30 p.m., which was shared with Gothamist by the NYPD.

Sewell said the department had faced “tremendous tragedy, challenges and triumphs” during her time at the helm and called the NYPD “an extraordinary collective of hard working public servants.” She said officer morale had been one of her priorities and that she hoped the changes made under her leadership would be “lasting hallmarks of my focus on your well being.”

Sewell closed her message by asking officers to continue to “do what you do well to secure this city” and thanked them for “stepping forward.” She also told them to “stay safe.”

The commissioner did not provide any explanation for her departure or information about what she’ll do next.

The NYPD did not immediately say when her last day would be.

Mayor Eric Adams thanked Sewell for her “devotion” and “steadfast leadership” in a statement released shortly after news broke of her departure. He said the commissioner’s efforts had “played a leading role” in the administration’s efforts to bring down crime.

“The commissioner worked nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a year and a half, and we are all grateful for her service,” he said. “New Yorkers owe her a debt of gratitude.”

Sewell is leaving the NYPD as homicides are down 11% and shootings are down about 24% compared to this time last year, continuing a downward trend from her first year leading the department after a spike in violence during the pandemic. Several other major crimes, including felony assault and grand larceny auto, are up from the first six months of 2022, according to NYPD data.

Focus on getting guns off the streets

On Jan.1 2022, Sewell became the first woman to lead the NYPD. Sewell, who is Black, was also the first police commissioner named in New York City after George Floyd’s murder sparked nationwide protests against police abuse. She was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams, the Black former police captain who won over voters with promises to make communities safer by empowering the NYPD — not defunding them.

Before taking over the NYPD, Sewell spent 25 years in the Nassau County Police Department, where she was eventually promoted to chief detective. She went from supervising a 350-person unit on Long Island to running the country’s largest police department, with more than 30,000 officers.

Under Sewell’s leadership, the NYPD has prioritized getting guns off the streets. NYPD data show the department has seized more than 10,000 guns during her tenure.

Last March, at the mayor’s urging, the department revived its controversial anti-crime teams, which then-Mayor Bill de Blasio disbanded in 2020, following complaints that the units were overly aggressive and disproportionately targeted people of color.

Like their predecessors, the Neighborhood Safety Teams focus on finding illegal guns instead of responding to 911 calls. But unlike the defunct units, Sewell promised that the new ones would be “highly trained” and focused on community engagement. She also deployed officers in uniforms, instead of in plain clothes.

A report released last week by the federal monitors overseeing the NYPD found that the Neighborhood Safety Teams frequently stop people without legal justification. About a quarter of the stops they reviewed were illegal, while more than 97% of the people officers encountered during stops were Black or Latino, according to the report.

The NYPD pushed back on the report’s findings and said the teams “have been instrumental in the reduction of shootings and homicides.”

NYPD data show pedestrian stops increased 70% in Sewell’s first year. In the first quarter of this year, officers conducted 4,193 pedestrian stops — the highest quarterly total since the fourth quarter of 2015 — according to data shared with Gothamist from the New York Civil Liberties Union. But a Gothamist data analysis found that those stops rarely turned up a weapon.

The department also started tracking vehicle stops under Sewell’s leadership, in response to legislation passed by the City Council. The first batch of data found that police stopped more than 670,000 drivers last year. About 90% of those they searched or arrested were Black or Latino.

Commitment to the rank-and-file

Sewell’s tenure started with tragedy. Just weeks after her inauguration, officers Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora were killed while responding to a call in Harlem. At Rivera’s funeral, the new commissioner made it clear she would stand by the rank-and-file.

“Those who seek to dim the beacons of hope across these five boroughs, look outside. Hear our voices. See the presence in this cathedral,” Sewell said, her deep voice echoing through the sanctuary. “The NYPD will never give up this city. We will always prevail.”

Since then, Sewell has responded to a series of crises, including a mass shooting on the N train and the overhaul of New York’s gun laws. She inherited a department that had abandoned or significantly scaled back many of its signature crime-fighting tactics, with plainclothes “anti-crime” units disbanded and stop-and-frisk numbers far below their Bloomberg-era highs, following a series of court settlements and citywide protests against police brutality.

But then came a nationwide crime spike and the political backlash that followed. Many officers complained that they felt unsupported by progressive lawmakers. Sewell joined in on the calls to roll back the state’s bail reform measures.

“The NYPD is out there helping people, protecting the public in their homes, in the streets and on the transit system,” she said at a press conference last August, asking the state to allow judges to consider someone’s potential threat to public safety when deciding whether to set bail. “We need to do this job together with the right tools and with a focus on our victims.”

Statements like that seem to have earned many officers’ trust at a time when many members of the rank-and-file have been retiring and resigning. The Police Benevolent Association, which hasn’t always had a friendly relationship with past commissioners, even named Sewell its 2022 person of the year.

In a statement responding to her resignation, PBA President Patrick Lynch said Sewell had made a “real impact” in her short time with the NYPD.

“She cared about the cops on the street and was always open to working with us to improve their lives and working conditions,” Lynch said. “There are still enormous challenges facing the NYPD. Her leadership will be sorely missed.”

Sewell also pledged last December to “amend” the department’s disciplinary matrix, which she called “manifestly unfair” to officers, according to the New York Post. A Legal Aid Society analysis found that the commissioner overturned hundreds of disciplinary recommendations from the city’s police watchdog agency.

The commissioner has yet to decide whether to discipline the department’s highest-ranking officer, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who watchdogs say abused his authority by ordering a precinct sergeant to void the arrest of a retired officer accused of chasing three boys with a gun in Brooklyn.

But several experts, advocates and members of law enforcement have told Gothamist that it has been unclear whether Sewell has been empowered to carry out a cohesive strategy — or whether politics have gotten in the way of effective policing.

Sewell has been leading the department in the shadow of both the mayor, who has called himself the “general” of the department, and Philip Banks, the deputy mayor of public safety, who is also a former cop.

The mayor’s office has refuted claims that Sewell wasn’t given complete authority to lead the department.

This story has been updated with additional information.