Sometimes, fate intervenes in a life and sets you on a path that you previously could not foresee. That's what happened to Benjamin Tucker, setting him on a path that would include stops in the halls of power in New York and Washington, and now as second-in-command of the New York City Police Department. NY1's Budd Mishkin filed the following report.

It all started almost 50 years ago when a childhood friend showed up at Benjamin Tucker's apartment.

"Aubrey rang my bell one morning and said, 'Let's go take this test.' I said, 'What test?' He says, 'The police test. They're giving it at Boys High School," he says.

So began a journey that's taken Benjamin Tucker from New York City police officer to official in the Koch, Clinton, Bloomberg and Obama administrations, and now back to the NYPD as first deputy commissioner.  

It is a journey he would have thought the stuff of fantasy growing up in Brooklyn.

"I didn't have a lot of love for cops because they used to hassle my friends and myself," Tucker says. "We were stopped, we were frisked multiple times for no reason. And from our perspective, we weren't bad kids. We weren't out there knocking people in the head. We were just teenagers."

The man who says he once "didn't have a lot of love for cops" is now the department's second-in-command, reveling in police officers' successes at a promotions ceremony.

"I think they've gone a long way towards helping us heal. It gives people a moment, a bit of time to sort of not forget, but sort of celebrate," Tucker says.

It has been a difficult time for the NYPD. Protests over the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. Vitriol from the police union president to the mayor after the murder of two police officers in their car in Brooklyn.

Tucker likened his emotions during this period to a roller coaster ride.

"I have responsibilities to be one of the ambassadors to the families, I think. I have a responsibility to try and console our officers from the 84th Precinct," Tucker says.

"At the same time, we still have to deal with the challenges that we're feeling and hearing from, and the grief coming from the community about the incidents that have gone on before that."

Tucker has seen this type of tension in New York before. The protests over the Brown and Garner cases reminded him of his time in the mid-'80s on the Civilian Complaint Review Board. When two police officers were murdered in Brooklyn, Tucker flashed back to his time on the force in the early '70s.

"We had four officers assassinated in the early '70s. Rocco Laurie, Greg Foster and Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones were all four assassinated," Tucker says. "Coming into Brooklyn that evening to go to the hospital, you could feel, to me, I was experiencing, it was like deja vu."

Tucker is in charge of the NYPD's training program, a topic that's become even more prominent since the Garner case.

At the new police academy in College Point, Queens, there is a multi pronged approach to try to close what Tucker calls "the gap between officers and the community." There's scholarly research about policing, scenario based training in mock environments,  and hands on mentoring for the newest officers from senior officers.

The problems are complex, and yet, Tucker believes there are simple solutions to defuse many situations.

"What we like the officers to do, and what the research suggests, is, people are, and this is all about, being respectful and leaving people with their dignity," he says.

"The research suggests that even if I give you the summons at the end of this exchange, you walk away or you drive away at least feeling as though you've got your respect."

Long ago growing up in Brooklyn, Benjamin Tucker earned his family's respect, reflected in a story he told about his Aunt Sylvia.

"She said to my wife, 'He was always a strange little guy because he was really old for his years, but we always thought he was going to be somebody,'" Tucker says. 

While working as a police officer, he went to John Jay College and Fordham Law School, but not because he found his police work unfulfilling.

"I mean, I loved being a cop, so we're clear," Tucker says. "I couldn't wait to go to work when I was on the street, when I was a patrol officer. I loved being a cop."

Eventually, he heard the call of civilian clothes jobs, primarily community policing positions in the Koch and Bloomberg administrations, and in Washington working for Presidents Clinton and Obama.

Tucker's is a long and diverse resume. Interestingly, that resume drew some complaints when he was hired to come back to the NYPD, by those who felt he had plenty of political experience but not enough recent recent street experience.

Tucker says he's received plenty of positive feedback, endorsing his credibility.

"One of the things I value most is being able to say I was a New York City cop, because other New York City cops, past and present, get what that means," he says. "So that’s all you need. "

He is an amalgam of his richly diverse experiences, in New York, Washington, and advising police departments all over the world.

He recalls one encounter with young students in Poland, a country that's almost entirely Catholic and entirely white.

"They were looking and looking as they got closer, and it occurred to me that they probably thought, 'Who is this? This guy is chocolate!' We don't-' you know," Tucker says. "I'm not sure they knew what a black guy looked like."

Right now, his focus is strictly on his hometown and the long standing issue of the NYPD's relationship with minority communities.

As a police officer and an African American, does Tucker ever feel like he is living in two worlds?

"I think there's a bit of both, I mean, if you're a cop, then you're a cop. As I said before, I loved being a cop, but I was also always an African-American cop."

"But I think to your question, I think, you do, I never heard it put quite that way, but you are, in many ways, exposed to the stories, the sentiment, that you hear from your relatives, and so that is an issue, that is a challenge sometimes."

Tucker says the makeup of the police department has changed. This is not your father's or your grandfather's NYPD. In the face of all of the blaring headlines, he believes police outreach to the community has made a difference, but he also says the thoughts of those who see inequitable enforcement are legitimate.

The issues are many, the answers not easily attained.

"The challenges we, that I deal with every day and that we are trying to address in this new administration, around how we bring the community closer to the department and get to the point where we are working together like we should be, is still a work in progress," he says.