BNV BLACK PEARLS: Keechant Sewell runs world’s largest police force

By Wayne Dawkins
NABJ Black News & Views

Keechant Sewell has a first name that is supposed to mean problem solver, healer, or comfortable. Those definitions were appropriate in her trailblazing role as the first woman and third Black New York City police commissioner. Sewell, 51, a woman of perfect posture, few public words and a mysterious Mona Lisa smile, served nearly 18 months – January 2022 to June of this year – as leader of the world’s largest police force. 

Expert observers wished her well but were wary of Sewell’s chances of success because women in big-city policing historically served short terms and faced overwhelming obstacles. For example, in 2020, women police chiefs in Atlanta, Seattle, and Portland resigned, under siege because of citizen protests, police killings of Black people, or calls to cut budgets and staff.

Sewell’s tenure as the NYPD’s 45th police commissioner was mostly upbeat. She earned praise from rank-and-file cops for improving their work conditions, The New York Times reported last June, and the famously private and buttoned-up boss put new graduates at ease last spring, winking at the nervous rookies and socializing with family members of those newly minted cops.

Sewell’s misfortune, according to Times reporting, was her leadership was undermined by her boss, Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain, and his subordinates. Specifically, according to news reports, a deputy major operated as a shadow police commissioner and Sewell felt frustrated and undermined by having to defend the person’s decisions.

So, Sewell resigned quietly, catching many people supposedly in the know off-guard. But while she may have been publicly reserved, a video widely circulated on social media showed a woman strong enough to handle her business.

In a speech before a Policewomen’s Endowment Association function last year, Sewell offered telling advice to her hypothetical woman successor.

“When you are no pushover, you will be called difficult,” she said. “When you do things your own way, ‘You don’t listen; you are paranoid.’ Your very existence is a problem for many. But I, every woman in this room and every woman with dirt on their face in this arena, is counting on you.  You are no experiment, you are no box checker, this was no social promotion, and this was no gift. You are the one in the constant harsh lights on the largest policing stage in the world and you are only the second of your kind. You don’t have to be loud to be strong. You don’t have to curse to be taken seriously. Compassion is not a weakness. Quiet competence is a strength.”

Sewell resurfaced in early November when the New York Mets baseball team announced she would be a senior vice president for security and guest experience.

“Keechant’s expertise in public service, law and safety, as well as collaboration with the public, will allow us to take our security and guest experience to the next level,” said Katie Haas, executive vice president of ballpark operations and experience. Nov. 27 was Sewell’s first day on the job.

Her position was created, said Haas in the statement, to “modernize our approach to safety and the guest experience at Citi Field [in Queens County where Sewell grew up] while also strengthening our relationships with the community and all agencies of law enforcement and emergency services.”

The Mets ballclub is valued at $2.9 billion, according to Forbes, more than the Los Angeles Angels and Atlanta Braves, not as much however as the New York Yankees [$7.1 billion] or Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the parents of the offspring Mets, born in 1962.

Still, it is a new opportunity that Sewell said she celebrates.

“I am excited to join the Mets for my first private sector role,” she said in a statement.

 “The opportunity to bring my passions of community building and public safety to the Mets is truly a dream job,” she continued. “As someone who grew up in Queens, this legendary organization is vital to local communities and so many across the world. I can’t wait to help be a part of building this world-class fan experience.”

Sewell, based on her resume alone, is keenly knowledgeable of Long Island, which geographically includes Brooklyn and Queens, and stretches 100-plus miles east to west. Before working with the NYPD, she spent two decades on the Nassau County police force and rose to the rank of chief of detectives, leading 20 investigative commands, along with federal and local task forces, said the Mets organization announcement.

“It’s actually a pretty important role,” Joe Giacalone, a former detective who worked in the precinct where Citi Field is located, told Gothamist. “The Mets get somebody who can run their security operations for the players and to work as a liaison between the police department.

Life imitates art, and Sewell’s tenure at NYPD might resemble – slightly – the CBS drama “East New York” in which a Black woman police precinct captain with roots in that Brooklyn community struggles against the mayoral administration and police bureaucracy, and also tries to win the trust and respect of uniformed police and residents.

“I smiled with pride. I want her to do well, but New York is a troubled city with a conservative police department,” John Jay College constitutional law Prof. Gloria Browne-Marshall told me in January 2022 when I wrote about Sewell’s appointment to the NYPD. 

With the news of Sewell’s New York Mets post, Marshall said, “Since this situation played out publicly, I’m glad Commissioner Sewell landed on her feet.”