Mayor-elect Adams Introduces Incoming NYPD Commissioner: Keechant Sewell

By Yehudit Garmaise

Mayor-elect Eric Adams introduced Keechant Sewell, this morning: his pick for the next NYPD’s next commissioner.

On Jan. 1, when Adams assumes office as mayor of New York City, Sewell said she is ready to “hit the ground running” in leading the nation’s largest police department, reducing violence and crime, and generally restoring order to the city.

“We want to re-instill hope in people, so they don’t feel that crime is the answer,” said Adams before introducing his top choice after interviewing dozens of well-qualified female top officers both from inside and outside the NYPD. “We want to put people on a pathway to employment. We want to put people on a pathway to mental health support: wraparound services.”

Adams sadly pointed out that more than 100,000 children are homeless in New York City.

“Everyone knows if you are homeless, you are less likely to graduate from high school,” Adams said. “And if you don’t get an education, you get incarceration. So this cycle is more than just who is on the street gangbanging. It is what we are doing as a city.

“We betrayed a portion of the city, year after year after year, with systemic lack of services that we want to change and stop, and that is our goal, and we are going to do it as a team.

“I am excited about this team, and the most exciting part of this team is what we did today by bringing on a new police commissioner,” Adams said before the NYPD’s incoming Commissioner took her first questions from the press: a crucial part of the job that was part of Adam’s interviewing process that was tested in a mock press conference scenario in which she was asked to respond to hard questions, such as one about a shooting, by a white police officer, of an unarmed Black man.

When a reporter asked Sewell her first very question: What was her attitude toward New York’s current bail reform laws that quickly return violent criminals to the streets, Sewell spoke with calm and confidence.

“I think judges have to be able to have the discretion to be able to keep dangerous people off the street,” Sewell said. “It is really about a balance.

“We really have to be able to balance what is important for the community and what is safe for the community, as well. I look forward to assisting the mayor-elect in any way to get that done.”

When a reporter asked Sewell how, coming from her current position as Nassau County’s chief of detectives, which employs 2,400, was preparing to lead the the largest law enforcement agency in the country, which employs 36,000 uniformed officers and 19,000 civilian employees, she responded, as Adams commented with an appreciative laugh, “with some swagger.”

“If you don’t believe I am ready, then come talk to me in a year,” Sewell said good-naturedly.

“Say your name for us, so we get it correctly!” one reporter asked as the final question.

After a pause, NYPD’s first female commission in the department’s 176 years said simply and with focused, self-assurance, “My name is Keechant Sewall.

“I am the police commissioner of the New York City Police Department.”