Keechant Sewell becomes the first woman NYPD police commissioner. Sewell was raised in Queens’s Long Island City neighbourhood and lived her earliest years in public housing in the Queensbridge Houses.

Keechant Sewell

She later lived in the Queens neighbourhoods of Corona and Jamaica, where she found a mentor in retired NYPD detective John Wesley Pierce.

Keechant Sewell affectionally called John Wesley Pierce “Pop Pop”.

According to Sewell, the surrogate grandfather and her dad, a U.S. Marine, taught her “service and honour”.

Sewell, 49, is the first woman to lead the NYPD’s 176-year history. She is the department’s third black commissioner.

In October 1997, Sewell became a police officer assigned to Nassau County Police Department’s Fifth Precinct.

Sewell was eventually promoted through the ranks to become the commanding officer of the 7th Precinct and then, by 2016, commanding officer of the major case squad.

She follows in the path of some greats.