READ: NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton Officially Submits Retirement Letter

NEW YORK, NY — NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton is now officially stepping aside as the leader of the city's police force.

Bratton, who announced he would be resigning back on Aug. 2, will hand over control to current Chief of Department James O'Neill. Bratton handed in his letter of resignation on Wednesday, though his official last day is Sept. 18. O'Neill's first full day on the job will be Monday, though he changed his Twitter account to say he was commissioner on Friday.

Bratton is reportedly taking a job in the private sector for the first time in his career. He will head up a new risk management division for consulting company Teneo Holdings. His second term as New York City police commissioner began in January 2014. He also served as commissioner under Mayor Rudy Giuliani from January 1994 to April 1996 and implemented advanced statistical crime tracking, known as CompStat, and the controversial "broken windows" policing philosophy.

Bratton's four-page letter to Bill de Blasio thanks the mayor, the public, the officers of the NYPD and touts the accomplishments of his time on the job.

"Serving as police commissioner during your administration has been one of the great honors of my life, and as I tender this resignation I also tender my thanks," Bratton writes to de Blasio. "In leading six different police departments across the country in the past 35 years, I have never been better resourced or more fully supported by any mayor. From equipment, to training, to technology, to policy, to the first substantive headcount expansion in more than a decade, you have stood by the NYPD and made much of what we have accomplished possible."

The letter also pushes the accomplishments of the commissioner's Neighborhood Policing Plan. The policy, also known as community policing, attempts to bring officers and members of the community they serve closer together. O'Neill was instrumental in implementing the program, which Bratton has touted as the future of policing not just in New York, but around the nation. Half of the patrol precincts in the city will have Neighborhood Policing by October.

Bratton mentions the 5.7 percent decrease in crime over the first two years of de Blasio's term — and Bratton's — and lauds the lowest murder total since 1957.

The letter also notes the nine new specialized units within the NYPD created under Bratton's term, from the Strategic Response Group to Grand Larceny Division to Animal Cruelty Investigation Squad.

You can read the full letter below:

Photo Credit: Diana Robinson via Flickr/Creative Commons