The Other McCain

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Chaos in NYPD as Commissioner Resigns

Posted on | June 13, 2023 | Comments Off on Chaos in NYPD as Commissioner Resigns

Keechant Sewell (left) with NYC Mayor Eric Adams

Three kids “horsing around” with a basketball in Brooklyn somehow set in motion a chain of events that has led to the resignation of New York City’s first female police commissioner. One of the first moves Mayor Eric Adams made when he took office in January 2022 was to appoint Keechant Sewell as the new NYPD Commissioner. Adams, himself a retired NYPD officer, was praised for choosing a woman as the city’s top cop. Sewell had spent more than 20 years as a cop in Nassau County.

What does any of this have to do with three kids in Brooklyn? Well, it’s kind of a long story. Sewell had complained that City Hall was interfering with her authority as commissioner:

Sewell’s authority became more tenuous after she sided with the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board’s decision to discipline Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, the department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer.
Maddrey, who was found by the police civilian’s watchdog to have abused his authority in a 2021 gun case, was highly regarded at City Hall, which “wanted him to get a pass,” according to sources.

Having researched this, I can assure you that “2021 gun case” was the biggest nothingburger in the history of nothingburgers, and that if it had happened anywhere else — OK, well, anywhere saner than New York City, at least — nobody ever would have heard about it. Yet somehow, because it is New York City, where everybody’s crazy, it turned into a cause célèbre and has now thrown the entire NYPD into turmoil.

Jeffrey Maddrey (left); Kruythoff Forrester (right)

Let’s begin by acknowledging that everybody involved in this story is black. The mayor’s black, the police commissioner is black, Chief Maddrey is black and so, too, is retired cop Kruythoff Forrester. Therefore, anyone trying to find a “social justice” angle here is going to be disappointed. Whatever else is involved in this story, there’s no “systemic racism” or “white privilege” to blame. So . . . November, 2021:

One of the highest-ranking members of the NYPD is being eyed by Brooklyn prosecutors for his role in getting a retired cop cleared of gun charges, The Post has learned.
The probe centers around an incident from the night before Thanksgiving, when former NYPD Officer Kruythoff Forrester allegedly pulled a gun on a trio of kids in Brownsville, according to sources with knowledge of the ordeal.
Chief Jeffrey Maddrey — who has been bragging to others in the department of his impending promotion with the incoming Eric Adams administration — got wind of the collar, showed up at the 73rd Precinct and ordered officers to void the arrest, sources tell The Post.
Just over 45 minutes later, Forrester was cut free, sources said.
Accompanying the off-duty, three-star chief that night to the stationhouse was Deputy Chief Scott Henderson, commanding officer of Brooklyn North Patrol Borough, sources said.
It’s unclear how Maddrey — who was tapped to run the NYPD’s community outreach last year despite prior scandals involving romantic indiscretions — learned of Forrester’s arrest or how the two men know each other.
The Civilian Complaint Review Board has opened a probe into the incident and referred the officers’ actions, including Maddrey’s involvement, and the gun charge Forrester faced to the Brooklyn DA’s Office Tuesday evening for potential criminal charges, sources said.
The gun case allegedly involving Forrester unfolded on Nov. 24 on Saratoga Avenue, where a trio of boys, ages 12, 13 and 14, were horsing around outside a real estate office that’s owned by the retired cop’s family, sources said.
At one point, one of the boys accidentally tossed a basketball into a camera set up on the outside of the storefront and ran off down Pacific Street.

(Oh, “accidentally”? These three young hooligans just happened to be “horsing around” at night and knocked out a security camera in front of a business “accidentally”? But never mind . . .)

Forrester then allegedly chased after the boys, came up behind them and threatened them with a gun, possibly firing at least one shot, sources said.
The 12-year-old boy sprinted home and called 911, and the other two ran off in a different direction, according to the sources.
The three kids independently gave cops identical accounts of the encounter and described the gun, which matched the description of the loaded pistol found on Forrester when cops questioned him, according to sources.
Forrester never said he feared for his safety or announced himself as current or former law enforcement, according to sources, who added that the ex-cop denied pulling a firearm.
Investigators have a video showing Forrester leaving his storefront and returning — but it doesn’t show the confrontation between him and the kids, sources said. In another video, first reported by The City and found by investigators, the kids can be heard yelling that Forrester had a gun.

See? Nothingburger.

Being chased by an angry gun-waving property owner is the kind of educational opportunity more “youth” in New York City need. There are plenty of places in America where if a property owner had shot such young vandals, no charges would have been filed, and most folks in the community would have said, “Served ’em right.” But whatever else you say about Forrester, he didn’t shoot anybody. He just gave those kids a good scare, and who can fault him for that? These kids nowadays . . .

Now imagine the situation when Chief Maddrey finds out a retired cop has been arrested over this silly nothingburger case. He did exactly what anyone would have expected him to do: Back the Blue, baby.

Being a cop in New York City is a tough job. Every day is Rorke’s Drift, surrounded by screaming hordes of Zulu warriors. Anyone who would volunteer for the job of trying to keep the lid on the boiling cauldron of violent criminality that is New York City deserves a certain amount of deference and, while the liberal wussies on the Civilian Complaint Review Board might fault Chief Maddrey’s exercise of his prerogative, I’d have to rule in his favor. The whole thing was just a nothingburger.

So far, I’m not a big fan of Mayor Adams, but if Commissioner Sewell sided with the review board against Chief Maddrey, I guess I’m glad to see her resign, even though I think the situation at NYPD is likely to go from bad to worse in the future. New York City, like most other major cities in America, is increasingly ungovernable, and my advice to anyone still living there is simple: Get out before it’s too late.



 

 

Category: Crime, New York

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