Friday marked NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell’s last day after 18 months leading the police department.
The mayor has not yet picked a replacement but First Deputy Commissioner Edward Caban will run the department in the interim.
The commissioner abruptly announced her resignation in a message to department employees earlier this month. The memo did not cite reasons for her departure or her plans for the future.
Sewell was the first woman — and the first Black woman — appointed to the top post in the nation’s largest police department. She went from leading a 350-member detective unit in the Nassau County Police Department to running a department with almost 34,000 uniformed officers and 17,000 civilian employees, according to NYPD data.
Sewell spent her last day praising officers at a promotion ceremony and thanking them for their “unyielding commitment to the protection of our city.”
“You will never be just a number to me,” she said. “On your shoulders, you carry the weight of a safe city.”
After Sewell shook hands with the promoted employees and handed them their certificates, a short video tribute played and the crowd gave her a standing ovation. Sewell, typically stoic and straight-faced, dabbed tears from her eyes. Then she laughed and motioned for everyone to stop applauding.
“She broke the glass ceiling,” said mayoral adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin before handing Sewell a bouquet of flowers. “She made the way for young girls to know that anything is possible.”
In her year-and-a-half at the helm, Sewell oversaw drops in homicides and shootings, following a spike in violent crime during the pandemic. Police statistics show that homicides are down more than 14% compared to two years ago, while shootings have decreased more than 30%. Some other crimes, including robberies and assaults, increased during the same time period.
At the mayor’s urging, Sewell brought back the NYPD’s controversial anti-crime units, now called Neighborhood Safety Teams, to look for guns in areas with high rates of violence. A recent report found those teams often make illegal stops. She also worked with Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul to send more officers into the subways amid widespread fears of transit crime.
Several policing experts told Gothamist that Sewell struggled to set her own agenda with a former NYPD captain in the mayor’s office. Mayor Eric Adams has denied claims that he and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks meddled in the commissioner’s decisions.
Sewell has not spoken publicly about what prompted her decision to leave the department and Gothamist’s attempts to reach her have been unsuccessful. But at Friday’s promotion ceremony, the outgoing commissioner hinted at some questions she’s asking herself as she leaves the NYPD.
“What do we give back? What do we take away from this calling? This mission? This responsibility?” she said. “And what positive changes do we leave behind?”
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