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NYPD’s top cop Dermot Shea and second in command file for retirement

NYPD Police Commissioner Dermot Shea and another top cop have put in their retirement papers in the weeks before Mayor-elect Eric Adams takes office, The Post has learned.

Shea, 52, and First Deputy Commissioner Ben Tucker, 70, will step away from the police department on Dec. 31, according to police sources.

The top cop’s driver, Det. Thomas Fitzgerald, also filed for retirement on Thursday, sources added. 

The lame-duck police commissioner, with just a month left on the job, filed for retirement while overseas in Dubai on “routine travel” for the NYPD. 

“On a regular basis, officials from the NYPD travel to countries where we have NYPD personnel posted as part of our foreign liaison program, and representatives from those countries travel to New York City,” police spokesman Ed Riley said. 

Shea, the third white Irish man as the top cop under Mayor Bill de Blasio, was appointed police commissioner in November 2019 after former police leader James O’Neill retired. He, like his predecessor, was considered a protege of Bill Bratton.

Shea will be remembered for disbanding the NYPD’s anti-crime unit — a controversial plainclothes patrol that accounted for a disproportionate amount of police shootings and, most notably, the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

First Deputy Commissioner Ben Tucker, center with Dermot Shea, will also leave the department. Gabriele Holtermann-Gorden/Sipa

But his two-year tenure was marred by headlines from the department’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the George Floyd protests and the surge of gun violence — as well as his claims about bail reform leading to the uptick in shootings.

Tucker, the second in command in the NYPD, has been part of the department for 24 years. He had been passed over three times for the police commissioner role.

Adams has publicly vowed to appoint a black woman as the next police commissioner and is expected to make an announcement next week.

Dermot Shea announced on December 2, 2021 that he will be stepping down as Police Commissioner ahead of Mayor-elect Eric Adams taking over from Bill De Blasio.
Dermot Shea announced on December 2, 2021, that he will be stepping down as police commissioner ahead of Mayor-elect Eric Adams taking over from Bill de Blasio. Lev Radin/Pacific Press/Shutters

His camp has narrowed down the national search to three cops, including former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best and NYPD Chief of Patrol Juanita Holmes.

“Police Commissioner Shea and First Deputy Commissioner Tucker will have a lot more to say in the coming weeks as they discuss their public service and gratitude to the City and the men and women of the Department,” Riley said.