As part of his Black History Month coverage, NY1's Dean Meminger sits down with an NYPD Inspector Eddie Lott, who works very closely with the police commissioner.
Inspector Eddie Lott is the executive officer within Police Commissioner James O'Neill's office.
His responsibilities include the administrative work dealing with the department's 36,000 officers.
That means he also has the commissioner's ear on all sorts of issues.
"And one of the things I really appreciate is that he asks my, he listens to my opinion, my insight." Lott said. "It's like, he's always asking, 'Do you have anything to add?' 'Hey, what do you think about this?'"
Lott has been a police officer for 30 years, but he's only held this position since the fall.
We caught up with him at the NYPD's executive offices and command center, where top officers monitor what's going on in the city.
"You just don't have meeting with the expectative staff here," Lott said. "They invite the community to this room. We have all the meetings or all the major meetings are pretty much in this office."
He was raised in Brooklyn, attended high school in Queens and graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx, a real city boy who knows firsthand how important it is to improve the relationship between police and the communities they serve.
When asked if he had gone through the experience of stop-and-frisk or being stopped by officers as an officer, he gave an example.
"It was kind of a car stop. You know, I had a brake light out. I had my two children in the car," he said. "And you know, I pulled over, my hands on the steering wheel, they requested my license, my registration, I put my ID. So once I got formally ID'd as a police officer, I thought things would kind of de-escalate. And then I look, and one of the officers is still shining a light in the face of my two children. I was livid. I mean, this was after I identified who I was."
As a man and a police officer, he felt violated, something many have complained about when it comes to interactions with police.
But Lott says he's worked hard to better police relations.
"And if nothing else, I think we have to, I think the basis of all human relationships is respect. I think we have to deal with each other on a level of respect," he said.