Former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik, “America’s Cop,” who helped make New York the most secure huge metropolis in America and led the division by the 9/11 terror assault, handed away Thursday at 69.
A high-school dropout from Paterson, NJ, he joined the Military and finally earned his GED whereas stationed at Fort Bragg (and, a lot later, a school diploma).
A number of years after leaving the service, he joined the NYPD in 1986, incomes the division’s Medal of Valor for saving his associate in a gun battle.
He shifted to the Division of Correction in ’94, rising to move it in ’98.
At DOC, he led an entire turnaround of the Rikers Island jail advanced, ending an epidemic of inmate violence.
In 2000, recalled his previous boss, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “He turned police commissioner once they thought crime couldn’t be decreased any additional, but he decreased it additional. His work helped New York turn out to be the most secure huge metropolis in America and a shining instance of city renaissance.”
In his 16 months as 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 Misplaced Son,” when the planes hit the towers.
After 9/11, Kerik’s work overseeing NYPD rescue and restoration efforts at Floor Zero led to his honorary appointment as a Commander of the Most Wonderful Order of the British Empire and introduced him to the eye of President George W. Bush, who tapped him to arrange Iraq’s provisional police drive after which named him to move the newly-created Division of Homeland Safety.
Then the roof fell in, because the vetting course of uncovered some silly errors that torpedoed the nomination and finally led him to plead responsible to federal tax fraud and do 4 years’ laborious time.
But Kerik bounced again, finally 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.
Relaxation in peace.
