BAIL-ING OUT
Top cop resigns, warns on jail reform: ‘It’s only going to get worse’
Before he announced his resignation yesterday, NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill warned that the “no bail” movement was going to make it harder to keep crime low in NYC. He’s being replaced by current Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea.
Police Commissioner James O’Neill announced his resignation on Monday amid record-low city crime rates — while privately warning that extreme criminaljustice reforms could unravel the hard-won gains.
“It’s only going to get worse,” O’Neill repeatedly said in the weeks before his resignation, referring to the city’s climate under criminal-friendly initiatives coming out of City Hall and Albany such as bail reform and efforts to raise the age of criminal responsibility, according to police sources.
O’Neill, 62, who served as the city’s top cop for three years, will finish out the month before turning over the NYPD’s reins to current Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea, 50, and decamping for a private-sector gig in California.
“I came into this job with one mission, and that was to fight crime and keep everybody safe,” O’Neill, whose last day will be Dec. 1, said at a City Hall press briefing. “And we did it, and we continue to do it.”
But while O’Neill publicly wore a smile and maintained that he was moving on only because he received a private-sector offer he “couldn’t pass up,” he fumed behind closed doors that soft-oncrime measures at the city and state levels threaten to undo the Finest’s best efforts, sources said.
He cited the Raise the Age initiative — which lets many 16- and 17-year-old suspects avoid being charged as adults — and bail reforms taking effect next year that will see more suspects released pending trial for crimes including nonviolent felonies, sources said.
The responsibility of guiding the NYPD through waters increasingly hostile to law-enforcement will now fall to Shea, a 28year department veteran known as a devotee of CompStat and analytics-driven policing.
He will become Mayor de Blasio’s third top cop after O’Neill and Bill Bratton.
“We’ve redefined in the last six years how we police this great city,” Shea said, touting NYPD efforts to drive down crime as well as arrests. “We’ve done what many said was impossible. [But] we cannot and will not rest until all New Yorkers feel safe.”
De Blasio expressed confidence in Shea’s ability to run an NYPD beset in recent months by antipolice vitriol in the streets, reports of flagging morale amid its ranks and an epidemic of cop suicides.
“Dermot brings a wealth of leadership experience, and he knows what policing needs to be in the 21st century,” the mayor said. “He definitely has big shoes to fill, but Dermot Shea is ready.”
O’Neill agreed.
“I know Dermot is the right person, and it’s the right time,” he said. “New York is in great hands.”
Shea’s successor was not immediately named.
O’Neill spoke frankly about the stresses of leading the nation’s largest police force since September 2016 — telling Shea, “This is a job that consumes you” — but admitted he does not leave easily.
“I’m gonna miss it,” said O’Neill, who took a moment during his remarks to name each of the Finest who died in the line of duty on his watch as well as a handful from years prior. “I love being a cop,” he said. The Flatbush-raised O’Neill’s storied law-enforcement career began in 1983, when he joined the Transit Police, then a distinct entity from the NYPD.
By the time the Transit and Housing Police were absorbed by the NYPD in 1995, O’Neill had attained the rank of lieutenant, but his rise had only begun.
He was later named executive officer of the 52nd Precinct in the north Bronx and went on to lead three other commands — Central Park, East Harlem’s 25th Precinct and The Bronx’s 44th Precinct — as well as citywide units, including vice and narcotics.
Following stints as chief of patrol and chief of department under Bratton, O’Neill was tapped by de Blasio as the NYPD’s 43rd commissioner.
The O’Neill era was marked by a record-low crime rate, including with murders, as well as a deeper commitment to using analytics and neighborhood policing — a push credited with driving down crime while strengthening relationships between cops and those they protect.
But O’Neill often found himself walking the tightrope of striving to please both City Hall and rankand-file cops — a balancing act exemplified by his handling of Officer Daniel Pantaleo’s fate.
Charged departmentally in Eric Garner’s 2014 death, the Staten Island cop was fired by O’Neill in August, leaving many in the department feeling betrayed.
That sentiment earned O’Neill a scathing send-off from Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins on Monday.
“Like any coward, Commissioner O’Neill chose to run off before the entire empire falls,” Mullins said. “I believe he will go down as the worst police commissioner in NYPD history.”
But O’Neill said on Monday that how he’s remembered was of little interest to him.
“I’m not particularly concerned about my legacy,” he said. “I think that all the work that we all do together, the executive staff and 54,000 members of the New York City Police Department, I think that speaks for itself.”