Report: "Extraordinary" Outlaw On Short List To Be NYC's Top Cop

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Her troops call Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw "MIA," as in Missing In Action.

One of her senior police commanders just testified in court that Outlaw lied to the press and public about who gave the controversial order to teargas protesters during last year's George Floyd riots. [She did, and not the official scapegoat who said he did, and then took a voluntary demotion and pay cut].

Some bloggers who are probably cops recently posted an inside exposé that everybody in the Police Department, including Outlaw, read, an exposé that painted Outlaw as a coddled, lightweight desk jockey and identity politics hire who is universally disrespected within the department because she has zero practical experience out on the streets as a patrol officer.

But Danielle Outlaw is still black and female. And so, according to the New York Post, she's an "extraordinary" police officer who's on the short list of black female candidates that Mayor-Elect Eric Adams may appoint to be New York City's top cop.

In a story in Thursday's Post, reporters Craig McCarthy and Julia Marsh wrote that three candidates were "leading the pack" to become NYC's next top cop -- former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, Outlaw and former Newark Police Chief Ivonne Roman.

According to what an anonymous source told the Post, the "Adams campaign started making calls to candidates last week to gauge interest."

“It is a true nationwide search but it’s mostly going to come down to a few candidates, including Outlaw and Best,” the source told the Post.

“They are both extraordinary police officers," the anonymous source told the Post. "Outlaw has more executive experience, while Best is viewed as a cops’ cop who is liked by Fox News and MSNBC viewers."

Wow, that's quite a gulf to straddle. I emailed the N.Y. Post reporters to see if they were smoking crack, but they didn't respond to a request for comment.

Memo to the New York Post: the only thing extraordinary about Danielle Outlaw is how long she's gotten away with being a complete incompetent. 

I also tried to get somebody from the Adams campaign to comment, but to no avail. 

However, ​Sgt. Eric Gripp, of the Philadelphia Police Department's Office of Media Relations/Public Affairs, had an official response about whether Outlaw was interested in the New York City job.

"Commissioner Outlaw's focus remains on leading the Philadelphia Police Department while making Philadelphia a safer city in which to live, work, and play," Gripp wrote in an email. 

I followed up by asking Gripp if P.C. Outlaw had been contacted by the Adams campaign, and if so, did she tell them she was interested in doing an interview with Eric Adams.

But Sgt. Gripp was not too talkative about that subject.

"P.C. Outlaw will not comment on rumors or speculation," he replied. 

According to the New York Post, however, Mayor-elect Adams, a former NYPD captain himself, is very impressed with P.C. Outlaw.

Why?

“Her coming to Philadelphia as a black woman and an outsider shows she can handle that kind of challenge,” the anonymous source told the Post.

It's the second time in the past few months that a New York newspaper has linked Outlaw to the top cop job in New York City. 

On Sept. 19th, the New York Daily News reported that Adams was looking to hire a woman as police commissioner and that Outlaw was among three top candidates under consideration for the job.

Back in September,  however, another spokesperson for Outlaw issued a more extensive denial about taking the New York job. 

"Commissioner Outlaw has not been approached about a position with the NYPD," wrote Officer Tanya Little, who added that Outlaw's "focus remains on leading the Philadelphia Police Department while making Philadelphia a safer city in which to live, work, and play."

And how's that going?

Well, as of last night, the number of people murdered in Philadelphia stood at 466, a record pace that's 12% higher than last year's near record of 499 murders.

The all-time murder rate in Philadelphia was 500 set in 1990. At the current rate, Philadelphia will break that record this year with 558 murders.

Meanwhile, in New York City, which has more than five times the population of Philadelphia, as of Oct. 31st, the city had only 399 murders, a 2% decrease over the previous year.  

Makes you wonder why they'd be interested in hiring Outlaw, since under her leadership, the PPD is floundering when it comes to reigning in gun violence.

Also reporting that Outlaw was a candidate for the NYC job yesterday was Marcia Kramer of CBS2 TV in New York. According to Kramer, Mayor-Elect Adams is another identity politics practitioner who's considering only women for the job. There are some six to eight candidates for the job, Kramer reported, including a few civilians who have never been cops.

“The next commissioner must be really emotionally intelligent and have the empathy and compassion and only should they have worn a gun belt, but if they didn’t, they should understand that we need to boost morale,” Adams told Kramer. 

Adams also said that he wants the city's top cop to get some corporate training on how to be a leader.

“I want my police commissioner to get a quality training of what leadership is all about, what it is to be a CEO of a major police agency, and that’s what we need, that type of leadership. And, unfortunately, in law enforcement, we don’t do that enough,” Adams said.

In Philadelphia, nobody has ever accused the laid-back, low-profile Outlaw of being a leader. And, as everybody knows, morale in the PPD is in the tank because Outlaw has no idea how to run a big city police department.

Is that something they can teach you in a class? I kind of doubt it. 

According to the Philadelphia Police Department's suspected in-house bloggers, Outlaw doesn't get much respect because she's long been the beneficiary of identity politics, starting in Oakland, where she was primarily a desk jockey for 20 years, and then in Portland, when she was hired in 2017 to be police chief.

"She can thank liberal whites for giving her the police chief job," the bloggers wrote. "Yes, she got the job because she is a black female."

As far as the bloggers are concerned, Outlaw's a lightweight used to preferential treatment.

"It was wrong to coddle Danielle in the formative years of her police career," the bloggers wrote. "Coddling encouraged Outlaw to become (or stay) delusional, egotistical, and whiny. She enjoyed a lifestyle that was geared more for administrative work instead of being a cop. Even today, she has only known police work as Monday to Friday day work. Ask her to do anything beyond that, and she feels drained and irritated."

When Outlaw was hired as the top cop in both Portland and Philadelphia, the bloggers wrote, it was because a "black female police chief is a sought-out and prized commodity" who become "the showpieces of progressive white mayors."

But if Outlaw is hired in New York City, this time she'll be a showpiece for a progressive black mayor.

In the world of identity politics, that's what we call progress. 

Regardless, many Philly cops are rooting for Outlaw to get that top job in New York.

As one cop put it, "Good luck and good riddance."