Kelly, Flinching a Bit, Looks Back With Head High (original) (raw)
New York|Kelly, Flinching a Bit, Looks Back With Head High
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- Dec. 30, 2013
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly sits at the head of a long table in a darkened executive chamber, as video and computer screens flash real-time crime reports. He considers this question:
You have been booed off a stage at Brown University, lanced by candidates, including the mayor-elect, and had a federal judge slap down your stop-and-frisk tactics. In the winter of your career, does this pain you?
The commissioner, trim and natty in a tailor-made suit and powder blue tie, slides a hand back on his armrest, as if to pounce. Then he sticks out his jaw and flashes a jaunty smile.
“Quite frankly,” he says, “my poll numbers are great.”
A national, even international face of law enforcement, Mr. Kelly in a final, hourlong interview with The New York Times ranged from buoyant to slyly cutting. He is acutely aware that in many New York circles his image comes accompanied by two black eyes. And he makes it clear he regards public introspection with the wariness of a mouse looking at a cheese-baited trap.
He is asked why he sounds a tad defensive. He laughs without much humor.
“When you’re being attacked, you’re going to be defensive, right?” he says.
William J. Bratton strode on stage for a return engagement as commissioner two weeks ago and, in a break with decorum, gave no nod to Mr. Kelly, his longtime rival. Nor did Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio toss even a shovelful of praise toward the departing commissioner. It was as though, in that moment, Mr. Kelly had been airbrushed out of the departmental photo album.
One Police Plaza is the one true municipal kingdom, and Mr. Kelly was its ruler for 14 out of the last 24 years. By most measures, his tenure was an overall success.
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