End of watch for ex-NYPD Commish Bernie Kerik, – Latest News
Former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik, “America’s Cop,” who helped make New York the most secure large metropolis in America and led the division by way of the 9/11 terror assault, handed away Thursday at 69.
A high-school dropout from Paterson, NJ, he joined the Army and ultimately earned his GED whereas stationed at Fort Bragg (and, a lot later, a school degree).
Just a few years after leaving the service, he joined the NYPD in 1986, incomes the division’s Medal of Valor for saving his companion in a gun battle.
He shifted to the Department of Correction in ’94, rising to move it in ’98.
At DOC, he led a full turnaround of the Rikers Island jail advanced, ending an epidemic of inmate violence.
In 2000, recalled his outdated boss, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “He became police commissioner when they thought crime couldn’t be reduced any further, yet he reduced it further. His work helped New York become the safest big city in America and a shining example of urban renaissance.”
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In his 16 months as the town’s high cop, he was lauded for his hands-on management — even making 5 arrests, plus collaring two ex-cons driving a stolen van in Harlem — and presiding over a 63% drop in violent crime.
He’d simply written a memoir of his rise, “The Lost Son,” when the planes hit the towers.
After 9/11, Kerik’s work overseeing NYPD rescue and restoration efforts at Ground Zero led to his honorary appointment as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and introduced him to the eye of President George W. Bush, who tapped him to prepare Iraq’s provisional police drive after which named him to move the newly-created Department of Homeland Security.
Then the roof fell in, because the vetting course of uncovered some silly errors that torpedoed the nomination and ultimately led him to plead guilty to federal tax fraud and do 4 years’ onerous time.
Yet Kerik bounced back, ultimately penning his second best-seller, “From Jailer to Jailed: My Journey from Correction and Police Commissioner to Inmate #84888-054.”
He devoted a lot of his later years to jail points and (smart) criminal-justice reform.
Bernard Kerik was a cop’s cop.
Rest in peace.
