Groundbreaker salutes mentor
Keechant Sewell credits a retired NYPD detective with helping instill in her the values that set her on a trailblazing path to becoming the department’s first female commissioner.
The 49-year-old Queens native told The Post she was mentored by the late John Wesley Pierce — who became a surrogate grandfather she called “Pop Pop” — while growing up in Jamaica, Queens.
Along with her dad, who was a US Marine, Pierce taught Sewell about “service and honor,” she said. Sewell met Pierce as a youth when her father dated his daughter, she said.
“He always took the time to talk to me about what it meant to be a person of honor and a person who cared about the communities and those around them,” she said.
Pierce, who retired from the NYPD in 1968, died in 2017.
Before Jamaica, Sewell lived in Corona and before that in the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, where Mayorelect Eric Adams is expected Wednesday to introduce her as his historic choice to run the NYPD.
Sewell has served as the Nassau County Police Department’s chief of detectives since September 2020, when she became the first black woman tapped for the critical position.
Sewell, who is single and has no children, lives in Valley Stream, LI, where she said enjoys cooking and entertaining her large family and friends.
City residency rules will require her to relocate to the Big Apple, and Sewell said she’s thinking about moving back to Queens.
Adams spokesman Evan Thies said Sewell has “had a meteoric rise” in law enforcement.
He noted that Sewell trained with the FBI to be Nassau’s chief hostage negotiator. She once prevented an armed neoNazi from firing at fellow officers during a seven-hour confrontation.
She received counterterrorism training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., and is on the New York-New Jersey Joint Terrorism Task Force, Thies added.
Sewell imagines the historic nature of her appointment as the NYPD’s first female commissioner will be a boost to the 19 percent of uniformed officers who are women.
“I hope it’s inspiring. I hope it shows that they’re seen,” she said.