NYC Police Commissioner William Bratton stepping down

New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton will resign Tuesday, a day after protesters called for his ouster, city officials said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio says Bratton will retire next month, and that James O’Neill, the department’s top chief, will succeed him.

The departure from the country’s largest police force would be earlier than expected, as Bratton had told the Times in July that he planned to leave the post in 2017.

Bratton, 68, started his law enforcement career in 1970 when he became a police officer in Boston. He’d previously served as Commissioner from 1994 to 1996 for Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and is famed for his launching and promotion of the use of CompStat and of “broken windows” policing, which encourages officers to pursue low-level crimes as a means to discouraging more serious infractions.

After several years of working his way up the ranks, Bratton moved cities and became head of the New York Transit Police in 1990.

“I wish I had words for what this man has achieved”, de Blasio, a Democrat, said at the City Hall news conference.

Teneo Holdings, a global CEO advisory firm, said Tuesday that NYPD Commissioner William Bratton will join the company as a senior executive of a new subsidiary that focuses on advising clients on key risk identification, prevention and response. But more recently, the style of policing he made famous in NY 20 years ago has come under criticism. Just yesterday Bratton said he doesn’t have to fear being fired.

“So-called “community policing, ‘ “training” and the rhetoric of ‘police-community relations” are no solution to the systemic problems with policing in this city and nation”, Communities United for Police Reform, a group that advocates for changing police practices, said in a statement.

“The revolutionary period we find ourselves in right now.is once again race”, he said.

Bratton, de Blasio and O’Neill all credit the neighborhood policing initiative with lowering crime across the city.

“It’s a crisis in America at this moment”, Bratton said.

“This time, I will have a key to the city”, Bratton said.

De Blasio said O’Neill has been the architect of the department’s neighborhood policing program, which works to strengthen the relationship between police and the community. James O’Neill, the department’s top chief, will replace him as commissioner.

He spent the last 31 months at the helm of the largest and best-funded U.S. police department overseeing a major expansion in equipment, recruiting and training, but he said policing was always unfinished business.