The city’s first female police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, is reflecting on her first six months on the job. Just three weeks into her new role, she responded to the deaths of NYPD Detectives Jason Rivera and Wilber Mora, who were fatally shot during a domestic incident in Harlem. 

“That was a very painful time. It is not something you get over in six days, six months or six years,” Sewell said. “People just learn to live with that pain.”

Sewell told NY1’s Dean Meminger that the deaths of Mora and Rivera not only affected the city, but the nation as well. She said responding to the difficult incident made her recognize the importance of her role to the families of victims and police force

“It was a lot to deal with, but I needed to be there for the families. I needed to be there for the police officers that were dealing with this as well,” she said. “And I think we had to come together as New Yorkers, so for me the weight of it was apparent but I had a strong support team with me to be able to get there and do what we needed to do to make we offer the support that we had to.”

In the months that followed, she would have to respond to a mass shooting inside a Brooklyn subway station, where Frank James, 62, shot more than a dozen subway riders, and the shooting deaths that claimed the lives of children and teenagers. Sewell said that although these shootings have been a “challenge,” she is determined to face them with the NYPD.

The police commissioner said her efforts to reduce gun violence and crime are reflected in NYPD data that shows the city has seen fewer shootings this year, although overall crime has jumped by 31%. 

“New York is not crazy. We are working every single day to make it safer,” she said. 

 In terms of her staying on the job, she told NY1 that she is going to continue being the police commissioner for as long as the mayor will have her. 

“I will be here as long as I am effective to make the city safer—that is my mission, and that’s what I intend to do,” she said.