Another was in charge one of the department's most violent and controversial periods. Howard Safir (Abnor Louima, Amadou Diallo, and a police-violence-laden Puerto Rican Day parade).
And the other two each served two different Mayors. Ray Kelly (Dinkins and Bloomberg) and, now, Bill Bratton (Giuliani and de Blasio).
The two men are each respected, and the two men couldn't be more different in how they run a department. Kelly, a strict organization man, dealt with huge cutbacks in cops on the street by – perhaps unwisely – sending out rookies into high-crime areas to carry out the NYPD's controversial "stop and frisk" policy. Brattan, following Kelly for the second time in his career, has vowed that one of his primary goals is to fix what he calls the low morale of the NYPD.
Ironic that, today, both Bratton and Kelly made news at ABC. Bratton for an exclusive one on one interview with my colleague Diana Williams (it airs on Eyewitness News UpClose at 11 a.m. Sunday), and Kelly because he's just become a security/anti-terrorism consultant to ABC across all news platforms.
It is a measure of both men – and their experience – that the last two Mayors of New York have turned to them to run the most important agency in the city.
It is not a form fence-sitting – but rather hope and optimism - to wish both of them well in their newest endeavors.
I hope you can join Sade Baderinwa and me, tonight at 11, for Eyewitness News at 11. We'll have any breaking news of the night, plus Meteorologist Lee Goldberg with his wet weekend AccuWeather forecast, and Rob Powers with the night's sports.
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