Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Monday hewill step down before Mayor de Blasio's first term is over at the end of next year. Seated next to de Blasio at a joint press conference in Brooklyn,both men laughed when asked about a possible replacement. "Kind of jumping the gun on that one," Bratton said. "I'm still here. final time I checked, and I'm still here.""He's sitting lawful here," de Blasio said.
But de Blasio already faces a tough re-election campaign, even with Bratton, and one of the most prominent police executives in the country. Policing is one of the city's most sensitive issues and de Blasio has challenged Bratton to maintain crime numbers low while improving relations between communities of color and the police at the same time.
For Bratton,who's been criticized for strategies that disproportionately affect black and Latino residents, the decision to step down comes at a time of intense national attention on how policing is conducted."There's never a good time to leave something that you love doing, or but there's a lawful time," he said, citing a drop in city crime, and which he expects to continue dropping as officers receive more training and better equipment.
De Blasio added that he's not aware of any other city commissioners who intend to leave before his second term. But he said he's not worried whether they accomplish."Each individual has their own life their own timeline we'll deal with it at the time," he said. "There's plenty of good talent out there."
Source: wnyc.org