It’s been almost a year since Bill Bratton replaced Ray Kelly as New York City’s police commissioner, which means it’s time for Kelly to start looking after himself. Since leaving office, Kelly has had 24-hour-a-day protection from a security detail that consists of a NYPD lieutenant, three sergeants, and six detectives. With their $140,000 salaries (plus overtime), the ten-man team cost taxpayers $1.5 million — a necessary expense, the NYPD argued, thanks to the threats Kelly and his family received as a result of his work. Now DNAinfo reports that officials have determined that Kelly is no longer the target he once was, so he’ll lose his publicly funded safety squad on New Year’s Day. His transformation from top cop to just some guy who works in real estate is nearly complete.
