N.Y.P.D. Boss’s First Weeks: A Rush of Tragedy, a Rise in Scrutiny

Keechant Sewell, who took over the New York Police Department as an outsider, was immediately faced with a series of shocking crimes.

Detective Felicia Richards did not expect to cry. But during an emotional eulogy just over an hour into the second of two funerals for police officers shot to death last month in Harlem, tears began to run down her face.

Standing at the pulpit in St. Patrick’s Cathedral was Keechant Sewell, who had been the commissioner of the New York Police Department for one month and one day. And for the second time, she was paying tribute to an officer who had been killed in the line of duty. The seven-minute eulogy mixed warm recollections of Detective Wilbert Mora’s life and aspirations with expressions of grief shared in his relatives’ native Spanish.

For Commissioner Sewell, the first woman to lead the largest police force in the nation, the remarks at the funerals of Detectives Mora and his partner, Jason Rivera, carried the weight of longstanding tradition. And for at least some in the pews, her performance began to answer questions about her readiness for the job: Ms. Sewell was plucked from a comparatively obscure position in the Nassau County Police Department by Mayor Eric Adams.