An unSafir future?

“THE greatest police commissioner in the history of the city” is how Rudolph Giuliani sees him. But New York's mayor was almost alone in praising Howard Safir when he announced that he would quit as top cop on August 18th for a job in the private sector—and it was Mr Giuliani who appointed him in 1996. More typical was the comment by the Reverend Al Sharpton, organiser of numerous protests against New York's police force: “He presided over some of the worst, most graphic police brutality cases in memory. His leaving will not cause any regret at all in our community.”