NEW YORK, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik turned down an offer Friday to continue serving under Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg.
Kerik, who had said he would leave with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in December, had considered staying and said leaving "was probably one of the hardest decisions I've had to make in my life."
The 46-year-old police commissioner had met privately with Bloomberg in the afternoon but Kerik announced his decision at a news conference.
"I love the department and the people who work in it," he said. "But this department will get along without me."
Kerik has been head of the 40,000 officer department since August of last year, after Howard Safir left. New York City, once a leader in violent crime, has had a continuous decline after Giuliani's first police commissioner eight years ago instituted the COMSTAT method of enforcement for police, devised by Jack Maple, on whom CBS's "The District" is based.
Crime statistics were computerized and analyzed and precinct commanders were held accountable for crimes in their area including "quality of life" infractions such as loitering or public intoxication, at weekly COMSTAT meetings.
While crime in New York City hit a 40-year low, the department was under fire by minorities who had been outraged by the police assault of Abner Louima, and the police's fatal shootings of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond that sparked numerous demonstrations at police headquarters in Manhattan.
Kerik eased some of the racial tensions by increasing the communication between police, community leaders and the public.
However, as his battles with organized crime and the drug world diminished, Kerik had inner battles he was fighting which he recounts in his autobiography which will be published Tuesday.
"What is most astonishing is not just that he survived a cruel beginning -- his mother abandoned him -- but that he spent a life in pursuit of justice, always fighting to right the wrongs he saw around him, working passionately to protect the vulnerable," said his publisher, Judith Regan, president of ReganBooks, a division of HarperCollins. "This was a man who couldn't sit back and watch anyone being victimized.
Kerik said he finished writing "The Lost Son -- A Life in Pursuit of Justice" in the early hours of Sept. 11. At the urging of his publisher he included a final chapter on the events of that day that left 21 of his force killed and well as almost 380 firefighters and New York City Port Authority officers as well as thousands of civilians buried in the rubble of the World Trade Center.
However, the book concentrates on how he got to be the 40th Police Commissioner of New York City -- his childhood, his being a high school dropout, a martial arts competitor, a rookie cop on the streets of Times Square, an undercover cop buying drugs in Harlem, a U.S. Justice Department investigator coming face to face with South American drug lords and as Commissioner of Rikers Island, the city jail system once known as America's most violent.
Despite his tough career in law enforcement, Kerik revealed in the book that one of the most painful things he ever dealt with was finding out the details of what happened when his mother left him when he was 4 years old. He was raised by his father and stepmother.
At the urging of his publisher he investigated the unsolved case of his own life -- the mystery of what happened to his mother.
His mother, Patricia, drank and was a prostitute in Newark, Ohio and her body was found in a man's apartment in 1964 in a seedy part of town. She died from a blow to the head and foul play was suspected.
Kerik, who went into law enforcement because of television shows such as "Kojak," said he would most likely go into corporate security. He said he'll take his vacation next week to promote the book.
(Reporting by Alex Cukan in Albany, N.Y.)
