Looking back at Bratton: A brief timeline of the outgoing NYPD commissioner

By City & State

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William Bratton

  • 1947
    William Joseph Bratton is born
  • 1965
    Graduates from Boston Technical High School
  • 1970
    After serving in Vietnam, joins the Boston Police Department as a beat cop
  • 1975
    Graduates from the University of Massachusetts in Boston
  • 1980
    Promoted to Boston Police Department’s highest sworn position
  • 1983
    Named chief of Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Police
  • 1986
    Becomes superintendent of Boston’s Metropolitan District Commission Police
  • 1990
    Named chief of the New York City Transit Police Department
  • “When I became the Transit Police chief in 1990, no one predicted that subway robberies would decline by 76 percent in the next six years, but it happened.”
  • 1992
    Returns to the Boston Police Department as superintendent in chief
  • 1993
    Becomes Boston’s police commissioner
    Boston PD Badge
  • 1993
    Named New York City police commissioner by Mayor Rudy Giuliani
  • “I did not come here to lose. We will fight for every house in the city. We will fight for every street. We will fight for every borough. And we will win.”
  • 1995
    Launches Compstat, a pioneering computerized accountability system
  • 1996
    Felony crime in New York City declines by 39 percent since 1994
  • 1996
    Resigns as NYPD commissioner amid tensions with Giuliani
    Rudy Giuliani
  • “Since I became commissioner in 1994, the New York Police Department has been engaged in a full-scale attack on crime. Reported crime continued to decline in the first quarter of 1996 – 33 percent since 1993. Homicides are down 49 percent.”
  • 2002
    Becomes chief of Los Angeles Police Department
    Portrait of a younger William Bratton
  • “We don’t have the certainty we had in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, when it was the traditional crime: murder, rape, robbery, car thefts. We had defined it. We knew its dimensions. And now we really don’t know what those dimensions are. We’ve had the unheard-of events of September 11th, planes hijacked and crashed into buildings.”
  • 2007
    Major felonies in Los Angeles decline by 30 percent since 2002
  • 2009
    Resigns as chief of LAPD
  • 2011
    Considered for position as commissioner of Police of the Metropolis of London
  • 2013
    Appointed New York City police commissioner by Mayor Bill de Blasio
  • “In this city, I want every New Yorker to talk about ‘their police,’ ‘my police.’”
  • 2016
    Resigns as New York City police commissioner
    Bratton with De Blasio
  • “I’m leaving because it’s the right time.”

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