Former NYPD Commissioner Howard Safir Dies; Had Ties To Long Island

NEW YORK, NY — The police commissioner under Mayor Rudy Giuliani has died. Howard Safir was 81.

Safir led the NYPD during a four-year stretch in the late 1990s.

Safir, who was the first Jewish top cop in the city, had ties to Long Island. He graduated from Hofstra University in 1963 with a bachelor of arts in history and political science. He grew up in the Bronx and Long Island, Newsday reported.

While murders dropped with Safir at the helm, moments of racial tension occurred during his tenure.

In 1997, police arrested Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, and officers brutalized him in the police precinct. In 1999, four plainclothes officers shot Amadou Diallo, from Guinea, outside his building in the Bronx, thinking his wallet was a weapon.

In 2000, an undercover officer approached Patrick Dorismond, a Black man, in an attempt to buy drugs. After Dorismond took offense, a tussle broke out, and an officer shot and killed him.

Safir's son told the New York Times that the death was a result of a sepsis infection at a hospital after undergoing heart bypass surgery.

The Associated Press contributed to this story