NYC Mayor Adams lavishes praise on outgoing NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell amid speculation about trouble at City Hall

Mayor Adams is fighting speculation that NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell is resigning because of trouble at City Hall, saying Tuesday she was welcome to lead the nation’s largest police department as long as she wanted.

“She made the decision that she wanted to do something else and I respect that,” Adams said a day after Sewell, the city’s first female police commissioner, resigned from her position. “People come and go. There’s nothing wrong with that. I have a rule: Do not stand in the way of a person’s desire to pursue their careers.”

He had nothing but praise for Sewell in the wake of her surprise resignation, calling her historic appointment one of the highlights of his time in office.

“Not only did I believe she was a great professional, but I just liked her as a person,” Adams told reporters. “She was extremely impressive from that first day that I interviewed her. I never lost confidence in her, always thought she had the ability to do the job.”

Still, the mayor was already speaking about Sewell in the past tense Tuesday. Sewell is expected to leave the job at the end of the month.

Adams would not divulge the reasons Sewell gave for leaving, declining to comment on what he described as “private conversations.”

He also gave no clues about who will fill Sewell’s shoes.

“When we’re ready to make an announcement, we’ll make an announcement,” he said.

Behind the scenes, insiders speculated that Sewell grew weary of micromanagement from City Hall and challenges from within the department.

For example, a source said, Sewell was frustrated after getting pushback recently on a job candidate she was promoting. The post has yet to be filled.

The source characterized Sewell as making remarks to the effect, “If I can’t get this, there’s no sense in me being here anymore.”

Former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton speculated that there may have been too many cooks in the kitchen.

“Normally everyone in the [NYPD] should be responsive first and foremost to the police commissioner, who is then responsive to the mayor,” he said on Len Berman and Michael Riedel’s morning radio show.

But Adams and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks, a former NYPD chief of department, have thrown that dynamic out of whack, according to Bratton.

“You have first a public safety mayor who is clearly very involved in the day-to-day running of the department,” said the city’s former top cop, noting that Banks was also heavily involved in department decisions.

“It’s not very clear as to who is running the department. ... You can’t have cops looking up, down and sideways trying to figure out who to report to,” he added.

Sewell received a two-minute standing ovation Tuesday morning from her chiefs and other attendees at an award presentation at NYPD Headquarters.

NYPD First Deputy Commissioner Edward Caban, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey and Chief of Patrol John Chell were among those who showered Sewell with applause.

Looking embarrassed by the attention, Sewell smiled broadly and motioned for everyone to sit so the event could continue. She didn’t speak to reporters and left the stage through a rear exit afterward.

At a Tuesday news conference, Adams noted she “broke the glass ceiling” at the NYPD.

“I can’t thank her enough,” Adams said, emphasizing that when Sewell took charge of the department, “just about every major crime category was moving in the wrong direction.”

“We’re going to continue to move this department forward,” he said. “The city is moving in the right direction.”

In an email to the department’s rank and file Monday, Sewell said she “will never step away from my advocacy and support for the NYPD and I will always be a champion for the people of New York City.”

Her goodbye letter to the department made no mention of the mayor.

The email was blasted to every cop’s smartphone shortly after Sewell had a meeting with Adams at City Hall. Adams followed the letter with a statement thanking Sewell for 18 months serving the NYPD and the city.

She also had a message for New Yorkers.

“I have always strived to bring you and your officers closer,” she said in a missive addressed to city residents. “I believe we have charted a course and implemented initiatives that will have a lasting impact on that relationship.”

Still, recent months saw plenty of headlines suggesting tension between Sewell and City Hall.

Last month, Sewell agreed with the Civilian Complaint Review Board after it substantiated a complaint that Maddrey had abused his authority by voiding the arrest of a retired cop who had been accused of threatening a group of teens with a gun.

Adams has consistently supported Maddrey, saying he believes the chief “handled it appropriately.”

The mayor also appeared to back former Chief of Training Juanita Holmes over Sewell in a dispute this year over training requirements.

Caban will be the next commissioner on an interim basis, but even he doesn’t know what his future holds, a source close to him said.

Adams and Sewell were both scheduled to appear at a LGBTQ Pride award ceremony put on by the Gay Officers Action Leauge at police headquarters Tuesday night, but the mayor canceled at the last minute.

His spokesman Fabien Levy declined to say why the mayor pulled out.

“Changes to his schedule happen all the time,” Levy said. “I’m not going to get into his personal affairs.”

Sewell showed up late to the ceremony and stood at the back of the room, while Caban and Maddrey sat in the front row. At the end of the celebration, she came to the front of the auditorium as few rank-and-file officers approached her for photos and hugs.

Sewell wasn’t acknowledged by Maddrey, Caban or any of the other NYPD brass in attendance.

“He thought Sewell did a phenomenal job as commissioner,” the source said. “Whatever happens to him, that’s in God’s hands.”

Not everyone believes Adams and Banks kept Sewell sidelined, but she did not relish giving news conferences, leaving many of them to her deputies. Her relatively low profile prompted concern among NYPD insiders that she wasn’t visible enough.

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Bratton believes Banks was Adams’ first choice for police commissioner, but thinks the mayor knew the stigma of Banks’ role in a 2014 federal corruption probe would not have sat well with the press or the public.

“He is arguably right now the most powerful person in the NYPD,” Bratton said of Banks. “But [the media] always bring up the corruption every time he’s brought up.”

During her 18 months at the helm, Sewell won over rank-and-file officers, Bratton said.

“I believe she had an opportunity to be an extraordinary leader,” he opined. “That was reflected by the very positive comments [the NYPD unions] gave when she resigned. They clearly thought she was concerned with the ... police in the department. Not too often do commissioners get glowing praise from the unions going out the door.”

A mayor having multiple police commissioners during their term is not uncommon. Mayor de Bill Blasio had several police commissioners in his two terms as mayor.

Although Bratton doesn’t know who will succeed Sewell, he knows one thing: It’s not going to be him.

“[My wife] Rikki would kill me,” he joked. “We don’t want to contribute to the murder rate.”