Shea, the son of Irish immigrants who lived with four siblings jammed into a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, is now the boss of the country's largest police department.
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"I view things a little differently through my lens, many commonalities with my predecessors, but terms of what I want to do, probably slightly different, always with the common theme of keeping New Yorkers safe," he said.
He has inherited a department where overall crime is down, but murders are ticking upward.
In fact, New York City will surpass 300 annual homicides for the first time in several years - half of those are because of guns.
"You look at the large picture of where we are and where we've gotten. We are in a good place in crime in New York City if you look historically. But that being said, we are a very stubborn agency. I ran com-stats for five years and we don't look at crime statistics as numbers, we look at them as people," Shea said.
Starting Jan. 1, a statewide bail reform law will go into effect that will eliminate cash bail and pre-trial detention for most low-level offenses.
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"Individuals in jail for low offenses, simply because they don't have money, we don't think that is right. What we are concerned about here though is that recidivist population that continuously games the system - in and out - and victimizing more people," Shea said.
In his first sit down interview with Eyewitness News after starting the new job, he seemed not to waste any time in trying to put his stamp on the NYPD, including trying to increase diversity in his management team.
"There were two announcements this week in terms of Fausto Pichardo and Rodney Harrison and there will be multiple other moves that I think will put us in a great position to succeed moving forward," Shea said.
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