Gallagher fondly Recalls 2 Stints in 19th Pct

William Gallagher, who served two tours in 19th Precinct, was promoted to NYPD Inspector in February and now heads the 200-person legal bureau at One Police Plaza. In his long police career, he’s hijacked a city bus and loaded it up with police officers on the way to the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks, overseen the apprehension of a suspect charged with murdering a beloved deli worker on the Upper East Side, and nabbed the suspect behind a series of knife attacks in Central Park in 2022.

But when asked for his most memorable moment in his 24 years in the NYPD, he has one hands-down leading moment: New Year’s Day, 2008 as a newly minted sergeant in the housing police in Harlem when he responded to a 911 call of a baby not breathing. When Gallagher and his partner arrived, they found one-week-old baby Jaylon Creeg turning blue in the arms of his frantic mother. While all police officers are trained in CPR, Gallagher had never performed it live in an emergency during his eight years on the job, and treating an infant requires special care. Gallagher began performing CPR on the limp baby. Finally the infant began breathing and started crying. “That was one of the greatest sounds” he said. “Of all my experiences, that will always be my most memorable,” he said. “His mother literally put her baby’s life in my hands.”

It even tops his experience on 9/11. He was on the job for just a year and a half when he heard about the attack. “A lieutenant told me to hijack a city bus,” he recalled. They stopped the next MTA bus, told the passengers to disembark and began packing the bus with police officers, rushing to get to Ground Zero.

Gallagher, 47, was born in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx. “I always wanted to be a police officer,” he said. “I’m Irish Catholic so it was sort of a natural progression.” He attended Xavier High School in Chelsea and St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia, where he met his wife Colleen, a teacher in South Orange. He and his wife married in 2005 and a year later he graduated from New York Law. “I was a police officer by day and a law student by night,” he said. They now have three kids.

Gallagher landed in the 19th Precinct for the first time in 2016 as executive officer, and stayed until 2020. “I loved working on the UES,” he said. “I think the 19th Precinct police officers are some of the best in the world.”

After three years as executive officer, he got his own post as the commanding officer of the Central Park Precinct. Generally it’s a low crime post, but he said it became a lot more challenging when COVID hit. People who were locked out of most indoor venues began flocking to the park as a safe haven. And in the worst days of the pandemic in 2020, a field hospital was opened on the east lawn. He also was instrumental in arresting a suspect behind a series of high-profile knife attacks in 2022. After three years, he made the move back across the park to his old stop at the 19th Precinct, but this time as its commanding officer. In his year back in the 19th, he oversaw the nabbing of suspects involved in a series of robberies on mopeds and oversaw the apprehension of a suspect who murdered a beloved deli worker last year. He also worked closely with the US Attorney and US Postal investigators to arrest suspects involved in phishing attacks online and mail thefts. “We treated it as a federal crime,” he said. At the end of 2023 he was promoted to lead the legal bureau at police HQ, heading a 200 person staff. In February, he was promoted from deputy inspector to inspector. “I’m very happy being a police officer,” he said. “Some day I’ll retire, but it’s not in the immediate future.”