5 Fast Facts About NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Bill Bratton will be stepping down as New York City's 42nd police commissioner next month to reportedly take a job in the private sector. Here's a look at his life and police career.
Bratton, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam, was inspired to become a cop at age 9 when he took out a library book called "Your Police," which is about policing in New York City. He started his police career in 1970 as a beat cop in the Boston Police Department, where he later became commissioner.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Boston State College and is a graduate of the FBI National Executive Institute and the Senior Executive Fellows Program at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
This was his second stint as head of the NYPD. He was previously police commissioner under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani from 1994 to 1996, during which time he emphasized the broken-windows theory of police work: that criminals who commit small crimes, such as vandalism, also commit more serious crimes. The two frequently fought over who deserved the lion's share of the credit for a decline in crime in the city and Bratton resigned after two years. He returned to the post in 2014 to serve under Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Bratton helped spearhead the use of CompStat, a data-driven system of tracking crimes that allows police to better allocate their resources to high-crime areas. The real-time system is still used today.
Bratton is married to CBS contributor Rikki Klieman and has one son, and two grandchildren.
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