I WILL COMMISS HIM
Shea lauds departing chief Monahan, despite critics
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea says retiring Chief of Department Terence Monahan is a good choice to help the city bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic in his new job — even as he’s being questioned on his handling of Black Lives Matter protests that saw cops clash with protesters.
“He’s loved throughout the city, he really is,” Shea said Tuesday when NY1 anchor Annika Pergament asked if Monahan was the right person to help the recovery effort given questions about his relationships with communities of color, which have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
“He can go into any room and he knows somebody from his many years in this city, and that’s across all ethnicities,” Shea said.
Monahan put in his retirement papers last week after Mayor de Blasio asked him to become senior adviser for safety planning in the city’s COVID-19 recovery effort. NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison will move up to take Monahan’s place as chief of department.
In June, Monahan took a knee and hugged an organizer at a George Floyd protest in Washington Square Park, as protesters threw bottles at police officers. Later in the summer, Monahan was injured in a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.
He has been accused of ordering his officers to aggressively clear the streets of demonstrators during several marches, most notably in Mott Haven, the Bronx, where critics say the NYPD trapped more than 300 people until the 8 p.m. citywide curfew started and then arrested them all for breaking the curfew.
Monahan is named in a lawsuit against the department filed by state Attorney General Letitia James and will be interviewed by the Civilian Complaint Review Board later this week about his actions during the George Floyd protests.
“This was a tough year,” Monahan said Friday on “Good Day New York” about the complaints against him. “Decisions had to be made as things were going on. That was an unbelievable time, not just here but around the country, but we have to move forward.”
Shea said Monahan is still “on the books” with the NYPD for another month and is planning to attend the Civilian Complaint Review Board interviews.
Questions about the chief’s ties with communities of color were disingenuous, Shea said.
“I don’t think that’s fair at all,” Shea said about the question. “To categorize it that way isn’t doing him and his career justice.”