Conflict emerges between N.Y. prosecutor, commissioner
NEW YORK — New York City’s new police commissioner has expressed severe dissatisfaction with the policies of the new Manhattan district attorney, sending an email to all officers late Friday that suggests a potential rupture between City Hall and the prosecutor over their approaches to crime and public safety.
The email from Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said she was deeply troubled by policies outlined by District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a 10-page memo that Bragg sent to his staff Monday. The memo instructed prosecutors to avoid seeking jail or prison time for all but the most serious crimes and to cease charging a number of lower-level crimes.
Sewell, who, like Bragg, was just a week into her job, said in her email to the department that she had studied the policies and come away “very concerned about the implications to your safety as police officers, the safety of the public and justice for the victims.”
The email suggests a looming conflict not just in their relationship, but also in that between the new district attorney and the commissioner’s boss, Mayor Eric Adams.
In a statement Saturday, a spokesperson for Bragg’s office said, “We share Commissioner Sewell’s call for frank and productive discussions to reach common ground on our shared mission to deliver safety and justice for all and look forward to the opportunity to clear up some misunderstandings.”
The statement added that contrary to the way that Sewell and others had interpreted parts of the memo, the office intended to charge anyone who used guns to rob stores, or who assaulted police officers, with felonies.
In his memo, Bragg instructed his prosecutors to ask judges for jail or prison time only for those who had committed serious offenses, including murder, sexual assault and major economic crimes, unless required to do otherwise by law. Bragg also instructed his prosecutors not to charge a number of misdemeanors.
“These policy changes not only will, in and of themselves, make us safer; they also will free up prosecutorial resources to focus on violent crime,” he said in his memo.