It was with great fanfare that Hizzoner announced Keechant Sewell as the new Police Comissioner. The fact that she was the first woman in that role was placed center-stage.
Now, roughly 18 months later, she is abruptly stepping down from a position she’s held since being sworn in on New Year’s day of last year.
Why is this celebrated first female leader stepping down?
No official answer was given. But we have some clues.
First off, she still speaks highly of the role and her time there, so it’s not as if she has lost faith in the mission of the NYPD, or the people behind the badges.
“I have made the decision to step down from my position,” Sewell wrote in an email to the department Monday afternoon. “While my time here will come to a close, I will never step away from my advocacy and support for the NYPD, and I will always be a champion for the people of New York City.”
[…]
[And in a message directedto the NYPD itself:]“I have witnessed your compassion, heroics and selflessness on a daily basis,” read the email, obtained by The Post.
“They have reaffirmed to me what people around the globe have always known: you are an extraordinary collective of hard-working public servants dedicated to the safety of this city, engaging our communities and sharing what we know with our partners for the benefit of the world,” Sewell wrote. “Please continue to do what you do well to secure this city.” — NYPost
If she’s still backing the institution, the problem lies elsewhere.
Ok, but where?
Said another source, “She was great, someone who genuinely cared about cops, the public and the rule of law. If she was given more authority, she would have done great things for this job.”
NYPD commissioners have historically held the power to promote rank-and-file cops to detective, and detectives to higher ranks — but Sewell had to run the moves past City Hall, law enforcement sources said.
“They tied her up,” one source said. “There’s no executive choices on her behalf. If a cop distinguishes himself and she wants to promote him, she can’t do it.”
[…]
“She was probably the fourth-most powerful person in the police department behind [Deputy Mayor Phillip] Banks, Maddrey and [mayoral aide Timothy] Pearson,” one law enforcement source said Monday. NYPost
So basically, this is a case of a Progressive Democrat selecting a woman for one of the city’s most prominent positions of authority… and pulling the rug out from her by micromanaging her every decision.
The problem seems pretty obvious. Mayor Eric wanted the credit for choosing a woman to do this job. He wanted to look like someone who entrusted a woman — of color no less — to a position of great responsibility.
And then everything he gave her with one hand he took back with the other.
That’s what it means when you give someone a role of responsibility without the corresponding authority to make decisions that actually matter.
Actual strong leaders don’t want to be somebody else’s figurehead and sock puppet.
The mayor will have to choose: do I want to micromanage the NYPD, or do I want to choose someone I believe capable of handling the job without being micromanaged… whatever identity boxes they might or might not otherwise check off?
If anything Eric’s micromanaging only serves to diminish the person he tried to elevate to this position. Why did he REALLY choose someone for that job if there were three other people ready to countermand her decisions?
As it turns out, the Commissioner was a strong enough woman, with enough self respect that she wasn’t interested in playing along with City Hall’s little political games.
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Source:
NYPost
