He was pivotal in many ways. I am sorry he is gone. May he rest in peace.
By Jeffery C. Mays and Emma G. Fitzsimmons
David N. Dinkins (click here) served a single four-year term as New York City’s first and only Black mayor. His tenure has been judged harshly at times, but it was also filled with accomplishments.
Mr. Dinkins, who died on Monday, had a significant influence on the city, shaping its physical infrastructure and beginning criminal justice initiatives that started to reduce crime.
He was remembered as a somewhat reluctant trailblazer and a gentleman who led the city during a difficult period of fiscal crisis and racial tension — themes that the city and the nation are currently grappling with once again.
“David Dinkins simply set this city on a better path,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
Here is a look at some of his accomplishments:...
December 29, 1993
In a harshly critical report, (click here) a special mayoral panel asserted yesterday that the New York City Police Department had failed at every level to uproot corruption and had instead tolerated a culture that fostered misconduct and concealed lawlessness by police officers.
The panel, called the Mollen Commission, agreed with police officials who contend that corruption was not systemic, but rather isolated to small groups of rogue officers. But the commission warned that if corruption itself was not systemwide, the department's failure to address it was.
"We find as shocking the incompetence and the inadequacies of the department to police itself," Milton Mollen, the commission chairman, said yesterday as the panel released an interim report on its principal findings. Will They Be Followed?...
