NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Mayor-elect Eric Adams formally announced Wednesday that he has chosen Nassau County Chief of Detectives Keechant Sewell to lead the NYPD.
Adams made the announcement in a press conference at Long Island City’s Queensbridge Houses, where Sewell lived as a kid.
Sewell will be the first woman and third Black commissioner of the NYPD.
Adams said he conducted a nationwide search for “some of the brightest and some of the best” and was “particularly proud of the historic choice we’ve made.”
“Our first woman police commissioner, Chief Keechant Sewell, a native of Queens who spent her early days right here in Queensbridge,” the mayor-elect said.
Sewell has spent over 25 years at the Nassau County Police Department, where she was promoted to chief of detectives in September 2020. She was the first Black woman to hold the role.
“She has risen steadily through the ranks,” Adams said. “She has worked in a variety of roles, including undercover assignment, overseeing gun suppression cases, conducting hostage negotiations, and commanding detective squads. A full breadth of experience.”
“Now she will make history again: the first woman to become commissioner of the largest police department in our country, if not the globe,” Adams said. “Chief Sewell’s appointment today is a powerful message to girls and young women across the city. There is no ceiling to your ambition.”
Adams said Sewell “carried with her throughout her career a sledgehammer, and she crushed every glass ceiling that was put in her way.”
“And today, she has crashed and destroyed the final one we need in New York City. We have a strong, powerful new police commissioner,” the incoming mayor said.
Sewell said she will look to make New York “a safer city, a more inclusive city, where the community feels connected, heard and served, no matter where they live or work.”
The 49-year-old Sewell was a “gut choice” for Adams, who had considered her for months, according to a report in the New York Post on Tuesday.
On the campaign trail, Adams had promised to appoint a woman as head of the NYPD if elected.
“I stand here today because a man boldly and unapologetically made a decision well before his monumental and successful election, a decision that gave women in policing across this country an opportunity—not a favor, but a chance—to work with him, the citizens and the finest, most storied police department in the world,” Sewell said at Wednesday’s news conference. On the campaign trail, Adams had promised to appoint a woman as head of the NYPD if elected.
Sewell recalled her Queensbridge upbringing, saying the housing development “is part of my story.”
“I wish my parents were here to point out the building and the apartment where they began to give me a strong sense of purpose, commitment and confidence,” she said. “To all the little girls within the sound of my voice, there is nothing you can’t do, and no one you can’t become.”
Adams, who was an NYPD member himself, was reportedly considering ex-Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best or Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw last week, but sources told the Daily News that the decision wasn’t final.
In an interview with 1010 WINS on Tuesday, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea was excited for whoever his successor would be, saying, “I’m incredibly optimistic, envious in some ways of who's coming in because they're in for the ride of their life."
Sewell will take the place of Shea, who served with the department for 30 years and as commissioner for two. He will depart at the end of the year, just as Adams takes office.
Sewell will be the third Black NYPD commissioner — following after Benjamin Ward in the 1980s and Lee Brown in the early 1990s.
She’s set to take the lead of the NYPD as crime has risen in many categories as of late, including robberies and shooting incidents. She told the Post that violent crime is her top priority.
According to the Post report, part of Sewell’s interview process included a mock press conference about the shooting of an unarmed Black man by a white officer.
The Police Benevolent Association said in a tweet, "We welcome Chief Sewell to the second-toughest policing job in America. The toughest, of course, being an NYPD cop on the street."
The Detectives' Endowment Association, which represents NYPD detectives, also released a statement about the new commissioner.
“The DEA welcomes Keechant Sewell to the NYPD at an unprecedented time in our history when leadership has never been more important,” the union’s president, Paul DiGiacomo, said. “Detectives and fellow cops need support more than ever—and deserve nothing less. That’s how we make NYC safe again. It’s no surprise to this union that the new Police Commissioner is Nassau County’s current Chief of Detectives, and we have no doubt Chief Sewell knows how hard our members work.”
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