NYPD Inspector Kim Royster will become the third black woman to be named a chief in the department’s 168-year history.
“It’s big,” she said of the achievement. “It’s big.”
Royster is the second in command in the NYPD’s press office, which fields nearly 10,000 inquiries a year. She moved to New York from a small town in North Carolina with dreams of becoming a professional singer and began working as a clerical aide in the Police Academy in 1985.
Two years later, she passed the police exam and became a cop. By 1987, she made detective and then worked her way up to captain after 19 years. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Management from St. Joseph’s College, and is a graduate of the Police Management Institute at Columbia University.
She had a major hand in the creation of the city’s gun buyback program, which gives amnesty and cash to people who turn in firearms to the department. The program has taken nearly 8,000 weapons off New York City streets since 2008.
She is an executive board member of NOBLE, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives NY Chapter, and juggles roles as a wife, a mother and the main liaison between the NYPD and the press. Asked about achieving heights that only two other black women have attained in the history of the NYPD, she credited her staff.
“It’s not just me,” she said. “Everybody here has a different style but we all work hard and we get it done.”
Royster will officially receive her promotion during a ceremony at One Police Plaza tomorrow.
“She definitely deserves it,” a detective in her office said.