What to Know
- Beginning this year, communities will have a direct role in selecting their NYPD precinct commanders, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday.
- When a precinct commander spot becomes open, the police department will provide three to five candidates to the police precinct council in that area. The police precinct council will then interview each of the candidates and report back to the commissioner, who will then make the ultimate decision.
- According to the mayor, NYPD and other community leaders, this step will not only improve community and police relations but also improve accountability.
Beginning this year, communities will have a direct role in selecting their NYPD precinct commanders, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday.
When a precinct commander spot becomes open, the police department will provide three to five candidates to the police precinct council in that area.
The police precinct council will then interview each of the candidates and report back to the commissioner, who will then make the ultimate decision and “work with the precinct council moving forward to make sure that new leader takes over effectively. Then the precinct council will have an ongoing role as always, but formally as well, in evaluating the work as that person goes through the important task of making the community safe and bringing the larger community in," de Blasio said.
According to the mayor, this step will not only improve community and police relations but also improve accountability.
"This is unprecedented in the history of the NYPD," he said. "We are bringing the voices of the community forward to determine who would be the right leader and that’s going to, I think, help in a myriad of way. It’s going to improve dialogue. Its going to improve accountability…I think it's going to help us improve the work on the ground and deepen that bond."
Borough President Eric Adams, who was one of the individuals who proposed the idea to the city, shared similar sentiments.
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"This is an important step in the right direction. It's an important step for a more just, accountable police department," Adams, who previously served as a police officer in New York City for decades, said.
"We cannot have true public safety without public confidence in our police department. Community policing must be responsive to what a community wants and needs," Adams said.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said that the idea of the police precinct council having a direct role in selecting their precinct commissioner was an idea that would come up frequently during reform meetings.
"This announcement today, is one of the things we heard over and over in New York City. People want to feel a connection to their NYPD, especially at the leadership positions. And this, I think, goes very far into building that trust both ways," Shea said. "From the NYPD perspective and from the executive perspective it really lends to the environment where it’s a team process….[a] shared responsibility: community and police working together."
Meanwhile, Jennifer Jones Austin, a community leader and activist said the measure is welcomed, calling it "another meaningful step forward to realize, what I believe, is a shared vision of community policing that is safe and fair and just. That the community will now have a voice and a role in selecting their NYPD policing commanders has the potential, I believe, to be a real game changer. It’s going to help build deeper relationships and trust – and accountability of officers to New Yorkers."
