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What They're Whispering at Police Plaza
December 18, 2017
The NYPD may or may not be the greatest police department in the world but it does have the greatest number of rumormongers.
Take the retirement this week of Chief of Department Carlos Gomez, the NYPD’s highest-ranking uniformed officer and its highest ranking Hispanic cop.
Foremost among the rumors — in fact, more certainty than rumor — is that Gomez’s successor will be Chief of Patrol Terence Monahan. Monahan is rumored to be best buds with Commissioner Jim O’Neill, who promoted him to the three-star rank of Chief of Patrol after O’Neill became commissioner in 2016. [And people say the Irish no longer run the NYPD!]
Monahan is a hard-nosed commander — and no stranger to controversy. As a deputy chief in 2004, he policed the Republican National Convention during which 1,806 people were arrested, many of whom were held for three days at a West side detention center. When the Civilian Complaint Review Board sought to question him about the mass arrests — which resulted in only one felony — then commissioner Ray Kelly refused to allow him to be interviewed in violation of the city charter.
So who’s Monahan’s successor as Chief of Patrol? Rumors are it’s Assistant Chief Rodney Harrison, who as Monahan’s executive assistant heads the mayor’s vaunted Neighborhood Policing program. Harrison is black, which is a rarity — hence an asset — amid the department’s three-star ranks.
Rumor also has it that certain influential females outside the department — i.e, Public Advocate Letitia James and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife Chirlane McCray — would like to see a woman, primarily a woman of color, in a high and visible positon. That could mean Queens North Assistant Chief Juanita Holmes, notwithstanding her embarrassing domestic issues. In 2011, her husband was arrested after smacking her around outside the home of an NYPD detective with whom he accused her of having an affair.
Then, there’s the impending departure of Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce, who ages out at 63 in a couple of months — but not before marching in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. He’s rumored to be under consideration as a top police guy on Long Island, where he lives.
Rumored to succeed him is Dermot Shea, whose official title is Chief of Crime Control Strategies and who was described by the Daily News as the “COMPSTAT mastermind.” He’s supposedly so dedicated he sleeps on a cot in his office every Wednesday night, poring over pages of crime statistics to prepare himself for the next day’s COMPSTAT meeting.
Problem is there’s no one to replace him at COMPSTAT.
Ignored in all this are Hispanic officers. With Gomez’s departure, there are none above the rank of Assistant Chief, which in the NYPD ranks higher than Deputy Chief. And there are only two or three Hispanic Assistant Chiefs. With Hispanic cops comprising 30 percent of the force, that’s something the NYPD will have reckon with.
