I have sat back over the few days and listen to a number of statements mostly praising the work of Bernard Kerik with regards to fighting crime in New York City. Kerik is being painted as a miracle worker who came, saw and conquered the underworld in NYC and literally ran the criminals around town. There could be nothing further from the truth. While NYC has seen a dramatic turn around in crime, the last person who should take credit for is Bernard Kerik. He came almost a whole decade later and was not responsible for crime reduction. To prove my point I would give a brief history of New York Police Commissioners.

Back in 1989 when I went to New York, Benjamin Ward was the first black Commissioner of NYC. He worked closely with Mayor Ed Koch a democrat. Crime was very high, drive-by shooting, where cars would pull up, low down the windows and spray blocks with bullets was the order of the day. Koch and Ward were quickly losing control. When the decade change, Koch had grown unpopular lost the race to run again, as a democrat for Mayor to David Dinkins while a brash and bright Lawyer named Rudy Guiliani won the Republican primary. Dinkins went on to win, on the platform of being the healer and the one to win the war against the criminals. This is 1991 now, and one of the first things that Dinkins did was to appoint a total outsider Lee Brown another Blackman to be police commissioner. Brown’s plan was simply to increase the amount of Police officers and put them back on the beat. He was immediately successful. Crime started to plummet according to the FBI indices like never before. New York began to get safe.

Dinkins however lost the next mayoral elections to Giuliani. Though he won the safety battle New York economy took a nose dive and Dinkins economic policy was not embraced by the business community. Many people believe it was because one he was black, and, secondly because of the Crown Height Riot of 1991 in which blacks openly rebelled against the powerful Jewish community. Trinidadian Lemrick Nelson was convicted of murder for killing a Jewish scholar Yankel Rosenbaum during this period.

On taking power Guiliani brought in his new Police Commissioner William Bratton who to this day rank among the best Police Commissioners in the United States ( he is now based in Los Angeles). Bratton continued the work of Brown but also became more aggressive in his style and confronted anybody who was against his style of leadership. All this time crime continued to drop. Bratton had one problem though he was taking center stage away from another brash and aggressive politicians in Rudy Guiliani. Subsequently he resigned after publishing a book which was against departmental policy. Many people believe to this day that Bratton was forced to resign by Giuliani.

Kerik became Bratton’s replacement and many people in NYC never took him as a serious commissioner as he was seen as a Guiliani stooge. During the infamous 9-11 World Trade Center bombing Kerik was the Commissioner of Police but nobody remembers him as such, it was Guiliani who got the credit.
Kerik has subsequently been under numerous investigations himself for his double dealing as a Commissioner. In fact he has the distinction of being the only Commissioner to have a television episode of Law and Order done about him. Needless to say I wish him well in the battle with our local criminals but he must not be painted as the man who turned around NYC Jack Warner. And Mr Warner must not be disingenuous and tell us how scared he was in NYC before Kerik came. Kerik contribution to the safety of NYC is minuscule. Lee Brown, William Bratton and even Rudy Guliani are the men who did the work. Warner knows this.