Howard Safir

Howard Safir, who presided over declining rates of violent crime as New York City’s police commissioner in the late 1990s, but who struck many New Yorkers as tone-deaf to racial sensibilities after the shooting deaths of Black men by his officers, died on Monday September 11 2023 in Annapolis, Md. He was 81. His son, Adam, said his death, at a hospital, was caused by a sepsis infection. Mr. Safir, who had a home in Annapolis, underwent double bypass heart surgery and was treated for prostate cancer while he was commissioner. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani put Mr. Safir in charge of the Police Department in 1996, to replace William J. Bratton. His successes were eclipsed by disastrous events that fanned criticism of Mr. Safir as a racially insensitive leader who allowed his officers to run amok. Safir, New York’s 39th police commissioner and the only one who was Jewish, was born in the Bronx on Feb. 24, 1942. Howard, one of three children, earned a bachelor’s degree from Hofstra University in 1963 and attended Brooklyn Law School for two years without graduating. After leaving the Police Department in August 2000 — he was succeeded as commissioner by Bernard B. Kerik — Mr. Safir returned to the world of security consultancy, at companies he either worked for or headed.