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    Bernard Kerik, New York’s Police Commissioner on 9/11, Dies at 69

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    Before his career imploded, he rose meteorically to become New York City’s chief law enforcement officer under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.Bernard B. Kerik, the New York City police commissioner who was hailed as a hero for overseeing the department’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, only to fall from grace after he pleaded guilty to federal corruption and tax crimes, died on Thursday. He was 69.Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I., announced Mr. Kerik’s death in a post on X. He said the former commissioner died “after a private battle with illness.”A cocksure high school dropout with a black belt in karate, shaved head and bulging biceps, Mr. Kerik vaulted to senior public posts as a disciple of Rudolph W. Giuliani after serving as Mr. Giuliani’s bodyguard during his successful 1993 mayoral campaign.In 1997, after Mr. Kerik rose through the ranks of the Police Department from a street cop in Times Square and narcotics investigator, Mr. Giuliani promoted him to correction commissioner, where he curbed sick time abuse by guards and reduced violence by inmates.Mr. Kerik’s appointment as police commissioner in August 2000 was not well received, in part because of his rapid promotions despite his lack of a college degree, which uniformed police officers ordinarily needed for promotion to captain and above. His highest rank before becoming commissioner was detective third grade. He later went on to earn a degree in 2002.During his tenure as police commissioner, for 16 months through 2001 when Mr. Giuliani’s mayoral term ended, crime continued the decline that was accomplished most by two of his predecessors, Raymond W. Kelly and William J. Bratton. Morale among officers improved. So did relations between the department and Black and Hispanic New Yorkers who had been alienated by incidents of police abuse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Correction Officers and Rikers Employees Charged With Corruption

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      Federal prosecutors said the defendants accepted bribes and smuggled in contraband, including drugs, for detainees at the troubled New York City jail.Five people who worked at the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City, as well as a detainee there, have been charged with corruption, including smuggling contraband into the jail, according to three complaints unsealed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday.Federal prosecutors said that in 2021 and 2022, several former city correction officers, a Department of Correction employee and an employee of a department contractor accepted bribes to smuggle in cellphones, oxycodone, marijuana, fentanyl and a synthetic drug known as K2.Their actions made Rikers Island “less safe, for inmates and officers alike,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement, adding that the defendants “engaged in corruption for their own enrichment.”Five of the defendants were arrested on Tuesday; the sixth was already in state custody. Lawyers for the defendants could not immediately be identified.During the period in which the officers and other employees are accused of smuggling drugs into the jail, visitation had stopped because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the number of overdoses in the city’s jail system had spiked.In 2021, were 113 overdoses in city jails that required a 911 call — a 55 percent increase from the previous year, according to data from Correctional Health Services, the agency that provides health care to detainees. In 2022, five of the 19 people who died in the jails or soon after release had overdosed on drugs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More