NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton resigns

August 2, 2016 | 11:11am


New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (right) and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton at a news conference
announcing Bratton's resignation.

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton is leaving the NYPD — for a cushy private-sector job with a firm with close ties to the Clintons, sources told The Post on Tuesday.

Bratton will be replaced by Chief of Department James O’Neill, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced.

Bratton will officially leave One Police Plaza next month, with O’Neill assuming command Sept. 16, sources said.

Sources said Bratton is going to the controversial consulting firm Teneo Holdings, where he will head up a new “risk division,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

One of the company’s founders was a top aide to Bill Clinton, and the firm has close ties to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Last year, it refused to answer questions from a Senate committee investigating its access to high-level government officials when she was secretary of state under President Obama.

Bratton’s impending departure comes after he repeatedly helped push crime to its lowest levels in recent history — but amid an unfolding police corruption scandal that he’s called the worst since the Knapp Commission revelations of the early 1970s.

The feds are also conducting a wide-ranging probe of de Blasio’s fundraising operation and suspected pay-to-play practices.

The mayor put a positive spin on the NYPD’s leadership change during a hastily scheduled news conference at City Hall.

“This is a very important day for New York City — a very good day, a very meaningful day,” de Blasio declared.

The mayor hailed O’Neill as “one of the best-prepared incoming police commissioners this city has ever seen.”

“This is that man who created that vision of neighborhood policing, and he will see that vision through for the good of all New Yorkers,” de Blasio said.

De Blasio lauded Bratton as an “utterly inestimable and extraordinary” leader and said they had developed “an intense bond” since Bratton returned for his second stint as police commissioner 31 months ago.

“I’m happy for your future, but I want you to know, this friendship — I’ll miss seeing you every day — but this friendship and this deep, deep connection will continue,” he said.

O’Neill — a native of Flatbush, Brooklyn, who’s served the NYPD for 33 years — told the news conference that his head had been spinning since learning of his promotion just 16 hours earlier.

“Those of you who have known me for a while know that I love being a cop,” he said before choking up while mentioning his mother, who was in the audience with his sister.

“She really was the one who taught me the ideals of what good cops should aspire to,” O’Neill said.

First Deputy Commissioner Ben Tucker said he would remain in his job, and O’Neill said Chief of Patrol Carlos Gomez would replace him as chief of department.

TV newsman-turned-Bratton aide John Miller will remain as deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism, de Blasio said.

Bratton, who ran the Los Angeles Police Department in between leading the NYPD, said he had accepted one of several job offers made to him in recent years, and told de Blasio of his plans July 8.

Bratton wouldn’t identify his new employer, but said he and his wife, lawyer and TV legal analyst Rikki Klieman, would remain in the Big Apple.

He also said that being New York City’s top cop marked his last time working in law enforcement.

“It is now time for me to move on. … Where I’m going, I will not be in the government arena,” he said.

Bratton has “wanted to go for months,” a law enforcement source said.

“He’s just tired of the daily grind. His wife is tired. He wants to move on and enjoy life and make money again,” the source added.

“He was pushing hard for O’Neill. He wanted O’Neill to get the job, and de Blasio did it.”

Word of Bratton’s surprise resignation leaked out shortly before the formal announcement, and Hizzoner was upstaged by City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who issued a statement to thank Bratton “for his years of service to New York City and commend him for working hard to keep crime low and our city safe.”

“The City Council looks forward to partnering with incoming Commissioner O’Neill as we work to improve police-community relations, reform practices and strive to create a more fair and just city,” she added.

Bratton had repeatedly said he would not serve past the end of de Blasio’s current term, which ends next year, and he recently endorsed O’Neill as his preferred successor.

O’Neill was promoted to chief of department in late 2014 to replace Philip Banks, who unexpectedly quit rather than be promoted to first deputy commissioner.
Since he was tapped by de Blasio to run the NYPD, Bratton’s leadership has helped the city repeatedly notch record-low modern-era crime rates, and in June he predicted a continuation of that trend.

“We really do expect, based on our current trending, that crime at the end of the year will possibly hit historic lows,” Bratton said at the time.

But his tenure was also marred by a gifts-for-favors scheme involving high-ranking cops, with Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara saying bribes from two Orthodox Jewish businessmen got them, “in effect, a police force for themselves and their friends.”

The bribery allegedly included a 2013 trip to Las Vegas aboard a private plane with a hooker who told The Post she engaged in group sex with the men while dressed as a flight attendant.

Defense lawyer John Meringolo, who represents disgraced ex-Deputy Inspector James Grant, reacted to Bratton’s planned departure by saying: “He better not go too far, because we are calling him to testify.”



http://nypost.com/2016/08/02/nypd-co...ton-to-resign/