BENJAMIN TUCKER and PHILIP EURE

INSIDE THE NYPD, First Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Tucker is the top-ranking person of color, claiming the No. 2 job after then-Chief of Department Philip Banks resigned rather than take it, fearing he’d be promoted to the sidelines.

Now Tucker, who’d been in charge of police retraining and who 30 years ago oversaw investigations at the Civilian Complaint Review Board, will be who cops and community members watch as the department tries to police the city ever more sensitively and effectively.

Polls show a racially split city, where just 26% of New Yorkers think the justice system is fair to people of color, even as the mayor and commissioner implement major reforms — like retraining thousands of cops and deploying more wearable cameras and Tasers into the field.

Closely watching those reforms, and the department more generally, is Philip Eure, the first to fill the new post of inspector general for the NYPD — effectively, the man policing the police, a role he previously held in Washington.

He’s launched an investigation on chokeholds and departmental use of force, and more is surely coming.

Commissioner Bill Bratton promises a smooth relationship with the new IG, but that could be tested, especially if Eure leans aggressively into the job.