but i don't. >> this morning, the outgoing nypd commissioner -- our only guest on "eyewitness news upclose." good morning, everyone, and welcome to "upclose." i'm bill ritter. bill bratton, the son of a postal worker, began his career as a beat cop in boston 46 years ago. who would've known then that a kid from massachusetts would, years later, become the best-known police official in the nation? he first served as new york city police commissioner back in 1994 under rudy giuliani, and, 20 ye back to the same job when bill de blasio became mayor. at his retirement announcement, he thanked his wife, rikki. >> first and foremost, my lovely wife rikki klieman, who once again upset her life to allow me to pursue the passion of my life, and that passion is policing and its importance to all that is good in america. and so, 31 months ago, once

being made to me by this great man. so rikki allowed that. thank you. it's been quite a ride and will continue to be one. >> i will just -- i wish i had words. i wish i had words for what this man has achieved. i think you could spends years and years researching and analyzing. you won't get it all. but one thing that doesn't get talked enough about with because he builds these extraordinary teams because people know -- they see how much he believes, how much he cares. and he's taught me a lot. he has been an extraordinary partner. and, you know, it's a beautiful thing when you can once again make a place safer and better. >> great tributes. that's the man who the mayor has tapped to be the next

but now the current commissioner is preparing to say goodbye. goodbye to bill bratton -- again. he says, this time, for the last time. commissioner bratton is our guest this morning. welcome. >> welcome. and it will be the last time. [ laughs ] >> well, at least as police commissioner, perhaps, but we hope to have you on. you're gonna go into -- >> well, last time as far as leading a public life. >> public life. that's it? no public office for you in the future? >> no public office, no appointments in a new administration. correct -- in the police world, 3 years in the military, if you think of it, that's 49 years, almost half a century. time to do other things. time to pass the baton. >> you're not golfing. you're not going golfing, though. you're gonna go into the security business, which you left to become police commissioner of new york again, right? >> actually, it's not security business per se. the company i'm joining, teneo,

companies, and i'm being asked to create a new division reflective of the increasing concerns in that world, relative to cybersecurity, hacking, terrorism, workplace violence, active-shooter issues. so the experience in the public sector translates very easily into the needs of the private sector. >> well, i would call that security. i didn't suspect you were gonna go into the night-watchman business. >> security -- it's a larger world than that, that teneo increasing need for this particular area of expertise. it's risk mitiga-- the fancy term, risk mitigation. >> yes, of course. so you're not retiring. you're still obviously gonna be working. >> i'm gonna intend to live in this wonderful city that -- as i'm looking out the window of your studio here, here in lincoln center. i'm gonna have an opportunity to walk around a lot more now rather than driven now and just enjoy it more as a private citizen. >> you said at your news conference the other day that

right time. why was this the right time? the job offer? did that do it? >> it's a combination -- this is a good time to leave, and it's the right time for me personally -- good time professionally in that all that i set out to do when asked to come back by mayor de blasio, i believe, i have accomplished so that i can feel comfortably, "right time for me personally." professionally, let's talk about it. terrorism -- an ongoing concern, but we've had the ability these social media, the whole issue of the lone wolf. we have created -- john miller, my counterterrorism chief, and i and the nypd, ordered by the mayor with tremendous funding -- the world's most robust counterterrorism capabilities, building on the platform my predecessor, ray kelly, had created to fight al-qaeda. now it's isis. in the area of crime, that there was a great deal of fear when mr. de blasio came in as mayor

gonna descend upon us. hasn't happened. streets are safer than ever. crime is lower than ever. i have never had a year as a police chief, in all the cities i've worked in, where crime did not go down, so my track record is unblemished as i go out the door. disorder -- increasing concerns in america about street disorder. here in new york, fortunately, we have the resources to deal with that and mitigate that in so many ways. and then, in the area of race relations -- you referenced that in the intro -- the one frustration i have is that success i had in l.a. that drove me to want to come back into this department in 2014 with the mayor -- the race tension in this city lies around stop-question-and-frisk. while we have largely reduced stop-question-and-frisk to appropriate levels for the amount of crime we have left in the city, the racial tension in this country that exploded around events in ferguson, along with the situation in staten island, remain unresolved -- and it's remained unresolved for 400 years.

>> it's flared up, as it has over time, and i don't have enough time left in my life to resolve it to the satisfaction level i'd like to have reached. that's a reality. i think we have made tremendous strides forward with this mayor, jimmy o'neill, the neighborhood-policing program, but the results of that, those seeds that are being planted, will sprout up after i'm gone. and it's appropriate because this is an ongoing issue in america. we're gonna resolve a large part of it long before the rest of america does. >> you did talk at great length about this team that you had built and that you were just the captain of it -- or the commissioner -- and that you were gonna leave and it will flourish. and you just said that again, but the truth, i think, to many outside observers is that you were the most valuable player in the de blasio administration and that your absence is going to mean a lot. and i know you try to downplay it, but, somewhere inside you,

yours is gonna have to learn to get away with it -- you know, get along without its most valuable player. can they do that, you believe? >> i'll let others make that judgment about my particular value. i look to my l.a. experience, that, when i left there, similarly, i arranged the opportunity for the mayor to be able to select within the department. and there, like here, the mayor opted, in a city that also had significant racial tension, to go with another white guy. and it's worked out quite well for l.a. as they've faced the same things we'v these last number of years. here in new york, i really committed over these couple of years, knowing i was not gonna stay for multiple years, to build a team -- and that's the fun of this job that you get, and mayor de blasio gave me great freedom to select my team. but he was exposed to it every week at our weekly meeting, so he's been working with jimmy o'neill for 2? years, he's been working with ben tucker, and you're gonna see very little movement when i go. you're not gonna see this mass exodus of people. jimmy will move some people

analogy. we've loaded the bus with great people. they're in the right seats at the right time for me, but there's gonna be a new driver, and jimmy's gonna reposition some of those people. >> the racial tensions that you talked about, you know, they started with police-involved shootings or choke holds, as the eric garner case in staten island, but then they mushroomed and they exploded into what we've seen in baton rouge and in dallas. and, listen, there were police officers in the last couple years in this city. that has taken it to a new level, and that's got to disturb you. >> well, first off, the racial tensions didn't start with, in new york, the death of mr. garner. they've been here throughout our history. >> i'm not talking about racial tensions -- i'm talking about taking it to a new level. >> oh, in terms of the issue of the assaults, the murders, the outright assassinations of police officers, that is a -- much the same as isis was a new paradigm in terrorism, the assassination of police officers

of the 21st century, unfortunately. the lengths we go to equip our officers with ballistic doors in their cars, ballistic windows, the equipment, new bulletproof vests, is reflective of that. but i'm hopeful, as many of the new training initiatives we're putting into place in new york, many of the community-relation-building enterprises, our capabilities to increasingly try to identify these lone wolves or these cells i'm hopeful that we'll be able to see a decline in some of that activity, certainly the assassinations of our officers. >> i know you talked a lot about -- and the mayor did -- about your high points. i want to talk about a couple low points, and let me start with the reaction from both the pba, the patrolmen's association, and the sergeant's union -- identical comments, you might have noticed. i'm sure you did.

doing what is right for the members of the nypd and the people of new york city." identical language from both the two biggest unions. what was your reaction to that, and why the animosity between these unions and you? >> there's actually no animosity with the pba, pat lynch. >> well, he said that. "he's finally doing what's right for the--" >> let me correct that. pat lynch is a very good friend for 20-some-odd years of both my wife and i. i was actually sitting in the car last night when pat called to wish her well. he called me yesterday. pat and i have professional disagreements in terms of some of what he's doing as pba president, some of what i do as commissioner, but we have very good personal relationships and largely very good professional relationships. we're joined at the hip in terms of wanting to do well by our officers for their safety. his issue is, significantly, economic -- pay raise for his members. i've been working very hard to ensure the safety of his

technology. so, with pat lynch, it's professional disagreements. with ed mullins, the head of the sergeant's union, ed is a... ed's quite a character, to say the least, that i don't claim to have the relationship that i have with pat personally and professionally. to be quite frank with you, i just don't get ed mullins, that there's something bipolar going on there. there's p no mayor that has ever done more for the men and women of this department in rms of their training, enhancement of the facilities, the equipment. in my case, i don't control pay-raise issues. but i'm just disappointed that mr. mullins has the feelings he has. i don't think they're shared by his membership. but in any event, has that impacted on the public of new york city?

we're hoping to develop new lines of communication through our neighborhood-policing effort. so relationships sometimes are problematic. i have some interesting relationships with the city council that -- but despite that, i think i've done pretty well politically in that realm, also. >> well, you've done very well, many would say, in the city council and with politicians in general. we'll talk about that when we come back. will you stick around for another segment or two? >> more than happy to. >> all right, our conversation with the outgoing nypd commissioner, bill bratton,

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right? >> be around for awhile. >> all right, you know, is it hard to give notice and give six weeks' notice? at some point, does your mind start to go to the other new job? >> well, in terms of the mayor, that i spoke to him on july 8th, so several months' notice that... and i think we both did a good job keeping it quiet, so he decided who the successor was gonna be. and then we stopped all that agonizing over who's going to be the next person coming in. w to find the right time to talk with the mayor, as he's been so loyal to me, so supportive. everything i look for, i get from him. plus i enjoy him. the mayor i get to experience, i wish the public would know and appreciate, and i wish my cops would know and appreciate how much he actually cares for them in the terms of their safety issues. and he's not just giving all these resources because of his

>> you had his back in crucial times. >> and he's had mine. >> well, but you had his back. i'll talk about that for a second. you had his back at crucial times in his first term here. when the two officers were assassinated, at one of the funerals, and when they brought that cop to the hospital outside, taking him to the funeral home, the police officers turned their back on the mayor. you quieted what was a horrible, horrible situation. there's no question that it was you who did it. >> that was the worst crisis in certainly during my time as chief, and i've had a lot of crises. that one, there were so many moving parts going on -- the whole issue of what was going on in america, in the city, the demonstrations night after night, tens of thousands of people. i think the unfortunate comments by the union leader, pat lynch, about the mayor had "blood on his hands" and the animosity that's existed ever since, that was a very delicate line to walk

calm -- at the same time, trying to help the grieving officers, a grieving police profession. two largest police funerals in the history of america were held in the city within a two-week span of time. and difficult times, and, i'll tell you, one of the things that i won't miss, going now into the private sector, are those calls in the middle of the night, the deaths of the officers that have died during ramos and liu, brian, williams, holder -- you think of them all the time. and so i won't miss that aspect of it, the grief and the consoling that you have to do. it is not easy to do those eulogies, to comfort those families. and in the deaths of those two officers, in some respects, i was trying to comfort a city and console a city and console and

saying, "what's going on here, that police, that are so important, being assassinated?" >> we've seen it so many times now since then -- in dallas and baton rouge. you saw that police chief in dallas, i think, became sort of a rock star around the country. but more importantly, to get out of the pop-culture definition of it, he really rose to the occasion, and i saw, you know, an echo of bill bratton in that man. >> well, i think you see that, in most instances of those types international attention, police chiefs do rise to the occasion. he rose to it in his situation, baton rouge. ed davis, good friend, colleague in boston, at the time of the boston marathon bombing -- the way he comforted his city. america is fortunate, specifically in its major cities, that it has a cadre of extraordinarily talented, caring individuals who are the first

generation of police chiefs i'm leaving behind -- and certainly jimmy o'neill is representative of them -- they're much more talented, much more skilled than most people give them credit for. >> before we get to anti-terrorism and what you see the difference is since your first tenure to now, let's talk about the search for your replacement in jimmy o'neill. how many other candidates were considered? was there a big surge, or was it obvious in your mind from the start? >> there was an article in thursday about just that issue, that -- again, i've referenced that i tried to position two people in the department in particular -- ben tucker, my first deputy commissioner, and jimmy o'neill. two very different personalities, two extraordinary individuals. and my advice to the mayor was, "you don't need to go outside the department. definitely don't go outside the department. they're here. and you've met them over the last 2? years intimately ever week at one-on-ones --" which are actually 10-on-10s.

so he had the luxury of they were not strangers to him, and, as i said to him, "you know, you're getting this talk about, 'why don't you go outside? why don't you pick one of these chiefs from someplace else?' they don't know new york. to come into this city at this time, it'd take them a year to learn the place." so there were only two candidates, and he chose one of the two. >> and, you know, obviously, the number-two guy wants the number-one job, and he wanted it -- mr. tucker wanted that -- and yet he made a very big deal saying, "i'm with you, jimmy," at the news conference. >> that's a clip i play. ben tucker is a class act from start to finish. his comments at the introduction of jimmy o'neill as the next commissioner -- class act. and that's the ben tucker -- that's the difficult decision the mayor had to make between these two men, that they're both extraordinary, not easy -- like king solomon, basically, in terms of making his decision. >> let's talk quickly about

big focus of your predecessor ray kelly's tenure -- 12 years as police commissioner. you react to it all the time. you know, we're taping this on thursday for airing on sunday. on thursday, there was this stabbing in london in a public park. looks like it was some sort of emotionally disturbed person, but you never know, and the nypd had to react. it's a whole reactionary response you have to have to every event around the world, it seems like. that's the reality these days. >> one of ray kelly's enduring legacies in this city will be wh protect the city, because we had nothing like it at all -- thousand officers focused on intelligence gathering and response. i think one of my legacies is going to be -- the world that we found coming in in 2014, which shifted dramatically from al-qaeda to isis and the expanding and as-yet undefined threat that they were going to now create -- so the 550-person new unit we've created that you see all over new york with the long guns and

we're constantly changing to meet the changing threat -- no city better prepared to deal with it, no city better equipped to deal with it. we are geared to respond anywhere in the city within five to seven minutes with large resources to deal with it. why five to seven minutes? because every study that we've done -- and we go to every one of these major murder scenes around the world with our detectives, who are around the world -- the analysis is that most of the deaths occur in the first five to seven minutes. so you've got to get in there quickly, neutralize but they're gonna kill those hostages, and you need to understand that. and there's a whole new way we have to train, whole new way we have to respond. but as i leave, to your audience, i want to assure them that there's no place in the world that's better prepared to deal with this. but the reality is that -- and you hear this over and over again -- it's not a matter of if. it's a matter of when. >> it's sobering indeed. >> it is sobering. this is the world we live in.

when we come back, we ask the outgoing commissioner of the nypd, bill bratton, if he had any regrets about the last 2? years. stay with us. i know you! [laughs] welcome! hi! we're your neighbors. we live across the street. thanks for this. i see you've got time warner cable like the rest of the hood. genius. yeah, they offer tons of free hd channels. and you can record six shows at the same time. and with the super fast internet, entertainment nirvana! wow. nirvana. switch to time warner cable

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learn more at cancer center dot com slash care manager. >> back with nypd commissioner bill bratton -- outgoing commissioner bratton. any regrets you've had over the last 2? years? if you could do it over again, what would you do? >> there are several -- certainly the regrets at the loss of the officers i referenced earlier, killed in the line of duty, regrets that the racial tensions in the city,

have been farther along -- and, unfortunately, national events and local events have mitigated that -- regrets about the public understanding and the understanding of my cops about the mayor that i know and get to work for -- not fully appreciating and understanding him and all he's trying to do for the city and for them. so there are some regrets there, and regrets, also, that i love this for the rest of my life, but it's the time. it's the time to move on. >> and we have about 30 seconds left. we've seen you tear up at the eulogies, which you're very good at giving, but you get emotional, and you got emotional the other day at your announcement, when you talked about your father and your mother. >> yeah. dad and mom, they were -- as jimmy talked about his mother, that they were the major influences in my life. i just read a letter that my sister sent me that she found in

and i teared up reading that letter because i talked about my love of country and my love of them, and this was the night before i was heading off to vietnam to go to war. and when i read that letter, it just brought back everything about dad and mom and what a great couple they were. >> the tough cop, the tough guy, but with a big heart. bill bratton. >> thank you. all the best. >> pleasure to see you this morning. good luck to you. >> thank you. >> we have spent this broadcast this morning saying goodbye professionally to bill bratton, with him. but this past week, we said goodbye in a more permanent sense to another life force -- suzanne wright. she and her husband bob wright, the former nbc executive, quickly realized a decade ago, after their grandson was diagnosed with autism, that we didn't know much about autism. and now we do, thanks largely to suzanne wright and the organization she and her husband founded -- autism speaks. suzanne was 69 when she died last week from pancreatic cancer -- the only cancer with a

the rise. at her funeral wednesday, bob wright said he promised his wife on her deathbed he would find an answer for pancreatic answer. judging from the wright's track record, pancreatic cancer is in big trouble. we will miss her. that'll do it for this edition of "upclose." "tiempo" with joe torres is next. if by chance you missed any of today's program, no worry. you can catch it again at our website, abc7ny. thank you all for watching. i'm bill ritter. for all us here at channel 7,

?? >> buenos d?as y bienvenidos. good morning. welcome once again to "tiempo." i'm joe torres. despite the recent economic reforms in cuba and re-established relations with the united states, the island is far om tourist destination. so we'll give you some important tips you should know about before planning your trip to the beautiful island of cuba. that's coming up in just a few minutes. now, though, we focus our attention once again on puerto rico and the financial crisis plaguing the island and its 3.5 million u.s. citizens. recently, president obama signed into law the promesa bill. the bill will establish a federally appointed control board to run puerto rico's