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Get a link in your mailbox to your weekly NYPD Confidential column as soon as it is published! Click on the button above right on this page — or here — to sign up for this feature. Dermot's First Weeks: Putting a Shine on ShinolaDecember 9, 2019 Newly appointed police commissioner Dermot Shea has taken command of the NYPD, but with the shadow of Mayor de Blasio draped over his shoulder. After his appointment was announced, Shea had a well-publicized meeting with Al Sharpton, who is not exactly a department favorite. It was not immediately clear what Shea hoped to accomplish by meeting with the Rev.. Department spokesman Chief Thomas Conforti did not return a phone call seeking an explanation. But Sharpton is a favorite of de Blasio. Remember that City Hall news conference in the wake of the Eric Garner “chokehold” death when the mayor sat the Rev. on one side of him with then commissioner Bill Bratton on the other?
These highly visible minority promotions, which were announced at a news conference with the mayor in attendance, were apparently to take the edge off de Blasio’s passing over for the second time First Deputy Ben Tucker, who is also black, for the top job. Whether Tucker stays in his current spot or retires remains to be seen. |
Finally there are Shea’s repeated references both at his inaugural and in department news releases to de Blasio’s prized policy, Neighborhood Policing, which the mayor claims, with no evidence, is reducing crime. That speaks volumes of who is running the NYPD. |
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