NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell introduced Thursday that she’ll be taking questions from New Yorkers on Instagram — then turned her again on a Submit reporter simply hours later.
Sewell launched the “Ask the PC” initiative as a supposed try at transparency amid a surge in most main crimes, the division introduced in an electronic mail shortly after 8 a.m.
At 11 a.m., the commissioner presided over the NYPD’s “Commencement and Horse Naming Ceremony for the Remount College of Horsemanship” at Pelham Bay Park within the Bronx — the place she dodged questions from a reporter.
“We’re not doing this,” division spokesman Carlos Nieves stated after the occasion, whereas bodily blocking his boss from the press.
Including insult to harm, one of many 10 newly anointed saddle-top cops fell off his mount throughout an indication of horseback prowess.
Sewell nonetheless quipped that she wished she may get one of many mounted cops onto metropolis subway trains, the place crime has been spiking. The reporter had been making an attempt to ask her in regards to the joke.
The Large Apple notched its ninth murder underground earlier this week, within the highest yearly tally for the reason that mid-Nineteen Nineties.
In response, Sewell took a one-stop tour underground on Oct. 11 with just a few cameras in tow in a bid to persuade the using public that they had been protected.
In response to the NYPD, New Yorkers will now be capable to submit inquiries to the division’s prime cop, who will then launch taped responses beneath the “landmark” Ask the PC program.
Every week, starting instantly, readers will allegedly be capable to submit questions for the commissioner on the NYPD’s Instagram web page, @NYPD, the division stated.
“The primary lady to steer the nation’s largest police division seems ahead to producing candid video responses to questions from group members.”
The NYPD says within the launch that this system will “create an everyday channel for considerate communications designed to deepen the understanding between the general public and the police at a pivotal second for New York Metropolis.”
The initiative comes after weeks of Sewell not often taking off-topic questions at press conferences.
Sewell was appointed to her place by Mayor Eric Adams in 2021 and has been much less and fewer accessible as main crime has swelled.
New York has seen a greater than 30% improve in all main felonies in comparison with 2017, the latest NYPD information present. And whereas shootings have seen a double-digit % drop in comparison with the final two years, gun violence stays at markedly larger ranges than earlier than the pandemic surge.
In the meantime, the division’s transfer to go on to the general public with Ask the PC isn’t unprecedented.
Sewell’s predecessor, Dermot Shea, launched the identical initiative after lower than 4 months within the position.
In Shea’s case, his crew fielded questions stay from social media as the highest cop responded.
For Sewell, who not often deviates from her script in press appearances, the solutions look like taped “candid” responses launched over time.
The previous police commissioner held three of those on-line boards over the primary six months of his tenure.
Sewell’s tenure to date has been punctuated by rumors that she’s leaving the job due to dissatisfaction with the stability of energy between herself and Deputy Mayor for Public Security Philip Banks.
Scandal-scarred Banks, who has been dogged by his ties to a corruption scandal, and Adams got here up collectively within the NYPD earlier than the mayor determined to depart to pursue politics.
Extra reporting by Craig McCarthy
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