NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell gave an impassioned speech before hundreds of female police officers, months before she announced her resignation, laying bare her professional battles with sexism during her time in the Adams administration.
Speaking at a November 2022 event for the Police Women’s Endowment Association, Sewell, the first woman to hold the post, framed her remarks as a letter to the “second woman to be the New York City police commissioner,” and referred to being “second-guessed” and portrayed as “difficult.”
“I write to you having taken stock in the 11th month of my tenure,” she said.
She then proceeded to tell her hypothetical successor: “You are different and you will be treated as such.”
The six-minute speech, which can be viewed on Instagram, was first reported by the New York Post back in December. In the current context, her words can be heard as a strikingly personal and defiant rebuke foreshadowing her decision to leave her post as the head of the country’s largest police force.
Sewell’s abrupt resignation on Monday represents the most high-profile exit to date from the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD officer who touted her historic appointment. The mayor has pushed back against reports that his hand-picked commissioner left because she felt powerless and undermined by him and his inner circle at City Hall.
Although Sewell did not mention the mayor in her speech, she outlined a litany of examples of sexist comments.
“You will get free unsolicited personal advice: ‘Your hairstyle is wrong, you look tired, already worn out in less than a year, you should wear different clothes, you’re not qualified, you are in over your head,” she said.
“None of this is true,” she added.
A spokesperson for the mayor suggested the videotaped speech was a “false story.”
“Congratulations to Gothamist for regurgitating the same false story the New York Post wrote over six months ago,” said Fabien Levy, the…
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