Howard Safir, who presided over diminishing rates of violent crime as New York City’s police commissioner in the late 1990s, but who was severely criticized for not acknowledging racial sensibilities after the deaths of Black men by his officers, died on Sept. 11 in Annapolis, MD. He was 81.

Murders, the most closely watched crime category, fell impressively on Mr. Safir’s watch — down from 1,177 in 1995 when he took over, to 673 when he left office in 2,000. However, the deaths of Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, and Amadou Diallo, from Guinea, at the hands of his officers largely eclipsed his accomplishments.

Throughout his time as commissioner, Mr. Safir was unapologetic about his hard-nosed tactics and his barely concealed disdain for civil libertarian critics. “People ask me about civil rights,” he said in 1998. “Well, the No 1 civil right in my book is the right to be free from crime.”