Forget Wyatt Earp and Eliot Ness. And you can certainly keep J. Edgar Hoover.
In the annals of American law enforcement, no one's achievements and innovations can match those of Raymond W. Kelly, the Commissioner of the New York City Police Department. Simply put, he's the best cop in U.S. history.
Sure, Earp and Ness were heroic men of great bravery, but theirs are essentially legends built upon bringing down a single notorious gang. Kelly, on the other hand, has, over an extended period, faced the challenge of overseeing the nation's largest police force in the biggest and most diverse city in the United States. He has done so in the post-9/11 paradigm, with the responsibility for the safety and security of the world's number one terrorist target. No one else has faced the scope of these challenges.
Consider further the massive scope of his responsibilities. The NYPD is a force of over 35,000 officers, more than three times the size of the Los Angeles Police Department. Think the Director of the FBI has a big job? He has fewer than 14,000 agents, with legal authority for fewer crimes than Kelly's officers.
Despite the breadth of his job, his performance has been nothing short of exemplary. Kelly restructured the organization of the NYPD, making it a model for fighting crime and terrorism that other departments are seeking to copy, even if it means forming regional alliances. And terrorism experts ranging from Michael Sheehan (himself a former deputy commissioner to Kelly) to Judith Miller are taking notice of Kelly's strategy and calling for a more local approach to identifying and deterring terrorist plots. His development of a highly-skilled team of analysts has paid great dividends by taking information gained by experienced investigators and processing it into usable intelligence for field work. Today, the NYPD is a larger component of the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force than ever, and their work with the FBI has never been more harmonious.
But Kelly's mission doesn't just involve terrorism, and more traditional crime fighting hasn't suffered for this concentration on it. For example, despite the economic crisis that has gripped the entire nation, property crimes have dramatically decreased. In fact, burglaries are down nearly 41% since 2001. Over the same period, violent crimes like murder (down 27%) and rape (down 38%) have also seen a dramatic turn for the better. These are the types of quality-of-life issues that have an undeniable effect on New Yorkers.
Kelly has a long, distinguished career that also includes a previous successful stint as NYPD commissioner (during which he adeptly handed the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993) and head of the U.S. Customs Service. And his career trajectory began with his appointment as a beat cop with the NYPD in 1960, an indispensable part of his experience.
It's easy to look back at the earlier days in the nation's history with nostalgia and romanticism, particularly about figures whose images have been reshaped by Hollywood. Civic leaders should look at the example that Ray Kelly is setting today and every day and adopt the approaches that have made him and the department he runs the world's best example of successful policing.