Keechant Sewell picked as 1st woman to lead NYPD

Nassau County Police Chief of Detectives Keechant Sewell has been named New York City's next police commissioner.

Sewell will be the first woman to lead the nation's largest police force. She will replace Dermot Shea who is retiring from the NYPD after 30 years. She will begin when Mayor-elect Eric Adams takes office on the first of January. A Queens native, Sewell, will be just the third Black person to run the NYPD after Benjamin Ward and Lee Brown, who served in the 1980s and 1990s. She will inherit a police department in flux. The NYPD has struggled to keep crime down a few years after achieving record lows. Mayor-elect Eric Adams has pledged new strategies to fight crime, including the return of foot patrols.