The new police commissioner of New York City sent an email to all police officers late on Friday night expressing his deep displeasure with the policies of the new Manhattan district attorney. This suggests a possible rift between City Hall and the prosecutor over their respective approaches to public safety.
Conflict Quickly Emerges Between Top Prosecutor And Police Commissioner
Keechant Sewell, the police commissioner, wrote in an email that the district attorney’s 10-page document to his staff on Monday strongly upset her. The memo was written by Alvin Bragg. Prosecutors were told in a document to stop pursuing a lot of lesser offences and to only pursue jail time in the most extreme cases.
Like Mr. Bragg, Commissioner Sewell had only been on the job for a week when she sent an email to the whole department expressing “grave worry about the ramifications to your safety as police officers, the protection of the public, and justice for the victims” after reading the regulations.
The growing discord between the commissioner and Mr. Bragg reflects a national political debate between moderate Democrats seeking to calm voters’ fears about crime and a group of progressive prosecutors who have advocated for more lenient policies to make the justice system more fair and less biassed.
Mr. Bragg wrote in a memo to his prosecutors that they should only seek prison sentences for persons convicted of grave crimes like murder, sexual assault, and economic sabotage, unless mandated by law to do differently.
Last Words
According to her letter, she is “quite concerned” that the new policy “injects controversy into judgments that would otherwise be uncontroversial, would invite violence against police officers, and will have negative impacts on our relationship with the communities we protect.”
