Rebecca Weiner, first woman to be NYPD terrorism chief, is sworn in
Rebecca Weiner, the new head of the NYPD's intelligence and counterterrorism unit, said Tuesday that her grandfather's work developing the hydrogen bomb has motivated her to protect New York City from weapons of mass destruction. Credit: NYC Mayors Office
At the height of the Cold War, Rebecca Weiner’s grandfather, Stanislaw Ulam, a scientist who had fled Europe, worked to develop the first hydrogen bomb for the United States as an offshoot of the storied Manhattan Project.
The fusion device devised by Ulam and scientist Edward Teller was many more times powerful and horrific than anything the world had seen, including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
On Tuesday, nearly 40 years after her grandfather's death in 1984, Weiner was sworn in as the head of intelligence and counterterrorism for the NYPD, a job that puts her at the center of the ongoing efforts to protect New York City from weapons of mass destruction by any means.
Her grandfather felt conflicted about the horrific consequences of the bomb he helped develop but recognized the need for intelligence and technology to prevent war and reduce crime, according to Weiner.
“It is part of the reason I have devoted the last 17 years trying to ensure that we are all protected,” she said.
Weiner said she planned to continue to leverage new and evolving technology to protect the city and combine it with what she called the “sweat equity” of members of the counterintelligence effort.
Just before Weiner was sworn in by new Police Commissioner Edward Caban, Mayor Eric Adams said her appointment was another example of a woman breaking with tradition in the NYPD. Weiner is the first woman to head the department's intelligence and counterterrorism unit.
“This again is a history-making case at the New York City Police Department,” said Adams, who a day earlier witnessed the appointment of Tania Kinsella as the first woman of color to be named first deputy commissioner.
Adams noted that Weiner had held every civilian title in her area of the department and had been an assistant commissioner in the intelligence and counterterrorism unit. Weiner first joined the NYPD in the intelligence area in 2006 when Raymond Kelley was commissioner. Married with two children and a Brooklyn resident, Weiner graduated from Harvard University Law School.
“Her work has helped foil terror plots,” said Caban, himself the NYPD's first Hispanic police commissioner. “She has also kept her finger on the pulse of new and emerging threats.”
Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.
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