NYPD
20 years of top cops
A look back at the good, the bad and the ugly of NYPD commissioners since 2006.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly held onto the big job for 12 years. Edward Reed/NYC Mayoral Photography Office
As the largest city in the United States, New York City also has the country’s largest local police force to match. Just one unlucky person is tasked with heading that massive department, and bearing the brunt of the responsibility for its many controversies and inevitable shortcomings – but that’s not to say that the job is a thankless one. You’re saluted in the moment, and your name is in the history books forever, for leading New York’s finest.
So as City & State celebrates our 20th anniversary, and our first Above & Beyond: Protecting New York list, we’re revisiting the eight vastly different individuals who have held the role over the last two decades.
Raymond Kelly
Years served: Jan. 1, 2002 – Dec. 31, 2013
Appointed by: Michael Bloomberg
Prior jobs: NYPD Police Commissioner (1992-1993)
Highlight: In the aftermath of 9/11, Kelly established the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau – the first of its kind in the country – and established a global intelligence program that stationed city detectives in foreign cities, thwarting 16 attempted terror attacks on the city during his tenure.
Lowlight: Under Bloomberg and Kelly, the NYPD leaned into stop-and-frisk as its signature policy – with stops growing from 97,000 in 2002 to over 500,000 in 2006, according to the NYCLU. The city’s use of policy was found unconstitutional in 2013, with a federal court ruling that the NYPD disproportionately targeted Black and Latino individuals.
William Bratton
Years served: Jan. 1, 2014 – Sept. 16, 2016
Appointed by: Bill de Blasio
Prior jobs: NYPD Police Commissioner (1994-1996), Boston Police Department Commissioner (1993-1994), Los Angeles Police Department Chief (2002-2009)
Highlight: De Blasio campaigned on progressive police reform policies – much to the chagrin of local police unions – and Bratton’s appointment as commissioner gave the mayor some much-needed credibility on public safety at the start of his first term.
Lowlight: Faced a lawsuit alleging that, despite a 2010 ban on the practice, the NYPD continued to enforce monthly arrest quotas targeting communities of color – an allegation Bratton called “bullshit.”
James O’Neill
Years served: Sept. 16, 2016 - Nov. 30, 2019
Appointed by: Bill de Blasio
Prior jobs: NYPD Chief of Department (2014-2016)
Highlight: O’Neill was the architect of the city's neighborhood policing program – in which officers are routinely assigned to specific neighborhoods to become better acquainted with the area and improve relationships with the community – and oversaw the program’s expansion into every residential precinct in the city.
Lowlight: A 2019 New York Times report claimed that O’Neill’s NYPD uploaded mug shots of minors into its controversial AI facial recognition system, drawing heavy criticism from civil liberties groups like The Legal Aid Society for the potential of the system to contribute to racial profiling and false arrests.
Dermot Shea
Years served: Dec. 1, 2019 - Dec. 31, 2021
Appointed by: Bill de Blasio
Prior jobs: NYPD Chief of Detectives (2018-2019)
Highlight: Shea got the short end of the commissioner stick: his relatively short tenure coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a major increase in crimes and a historic spike in gun violence and homicides. Amid the peak of anti–police backlash, he agreed to dismantle the notoriously aggressive plainclothes anti-crime units.
Lowlight: Following allegations of excessive force and racial profiling during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests – and his defense of officers who drove cars into protestors – New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Shea’s NYPD for systemic patterns of false arrests during peaceful protests.
Keechant Sewell
Years served: Jan. 1, 2022 - June 30, 2023
Appointed by: Eric Adams
Prior jobs: Nassau County Police Department Chief of Detectives (2020-2021)
Highlight: Sewell was the first NYPD Commissioner to receive the New York City Police Benevolent Association Person of the Year award, after years of rocky relationships between the union and commissioners and low morale amongst cops.
Lowlight: Sewell disagreed with or declined to pursue more than half of the disciplinary recommendations made by the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the city’s independent police watch dog, allowing hundreds of misconduct cases to go undisciplined.
Edward Caban
Years served: July 1, 2023 - Sept. 13, 2024
Appointed by: Eric Adams
Prior jobs: NYPD First Deputy Police Commissioner (2022-2023)
Highlight: A Bronx native of Puerto Rican descent, Caban was the first Latino to serve as NYPD Commissioner.
Lowlight: Caban did not escape the Adams administration unscathed – the FBI raided the commissioner's home and his cellphone was subpoenaed, which led to his resignation days later.
Thomas Donlon
Dates: Sept. 13 - Nov. 24, 2024
Appointed by: Eric Adams
Prior jobs: CEO and co-founder of private security and consulting company Global Security Resolutions (2020), Director of New York’s Office of Homeland Security (2009-2010), FBI special agent (1981-2008)
Highlight: Donlon only served as commissioner for a little over two months, so he wasn’t able to make much of a mark on the NYPD. Under normal circumstances, that would be something for a highlight if it weren’t for…
Lowlight: Surprise! Donlon’s home was searched just over a week after Adams appointed him as interim commissioner. In a shocking turn of events, though, the search was unrelated to the corruption probe into the Adams administration – the feds were instead carrying out a search warrant for classified documents Donlon had on hand for years from a prior job.
Jessica Tisch
Years served: Nov. 25, 2024 - present
Appointed by: Eric Adams, Zohran Mamdani
Prior jobs: Commissioner of NYC Department of Sanitation (2022-2024), Commissioner for New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication (2019-2022)
Highlight: Despite the conflict between Tisch’s billionaire family and Mamdani’s democratic socialism, big business and Gov. Kathy Hochul managed to convince the mayor to keep Tisch on as commissioner despite their ideological differences. And, despite Mamdani’s campaign promises to cut police overtime spending, Tisch managed to get him to agree to 12-hour shifts for most officers during the FIFA World Cup.
Lowlight: But, Tisch butted heads with Mamdani in February after they differed on where the line was between snowball fight and assault. They seem to have been getting along a bit better after that incident, but only time – and the next snowpocalypse – will tell if they’ve truly buried the hatchet.