New York, NY – In response to this week’s announcement that NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell is resigning, Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) issued the following statement from CPR spokesperson Loyda Colon (they/them), Executive Director of the Justice Committee:
“NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell and Mayor Adams made repeated early promises to better care for and protect New Yorkers, including ensuring meaningful police accountability. By this measure, and by many, many more, Sewell’s tenure and Adams’ approach to public safety have been abject failures.
“Under Sewell and Adams’ watch, the NYPD has been more consistently violent and hyper-aggressive and less accountable than at any time since Giuliani was mayor.
“Discriminatory and unconstitutional stops are up; Neighborhood Safety Teams—Mayor Adams’ rebrand of the historically violent Anti Crime Unit—run rogue in communities of color; and the NYPD – including the notoriously violent Strategic Response Group – is abusively suppressing protests.
“All the while, Sewell –with Adams’ oversight – has emboldened the NYPD to act with impunity. She’s bragged about downgrading more CCRB and NYPD discipline recommendations than her predecessors, watered-down the already weak NYPD disciplinary matrix, impaired the CCRB’s racial profiling investigations so much so that they may be forced to refer those cases back to the NYPD, failed to fire the officers who killed Kawaski Trawick, Delrawn Small, Antonio Williams, Allan Feliz, Ronald Anthony Smith and too many others, threatened to roll back enforcement of the Right To Know Act laws, and thwarted the discipline recommendations of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, enabling abusive officers to remain on the force and get paid on taxpayers’ dime.
