Mayor Adams’ appointment of a new deputy mayor for public safety, Chauncey Parker, is a welcome move to put an independent seasoned criminal justice expert of four decades experience in the role. It’s very good for Adams, good for Parker and good for New Yorkers. And it’s very bad for the small number of bad guys who are responsible for many of the gun crimes in the city. Unlike the former holder of the position, Phil Banks — and his big brother David Banks, who was schools chancellor until yesterday, and their younger brother, Terry Banks, and who all have been subject to FBI search warrants and seizures of their smartphones — Parker is not an old buddy of Adams. The departure of the Banks brothers, along with David’s wife, former First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who left a week ago and who also had her phone taken by the feds, has destabilized the Adams administration just as the mayor himself is facing his own criminal charges from Justice Department prosecutors. The elevation of Parker should help steady the ship. Like Adams, we have great confidence in Parker, who we’ve known since then-Gov. George Pataki made him the state’s director of criminal justice services following five years as a Manhattan assistant district attorney under the legendary Bob Morgenthau and then 10 years as a Manhattan federal prosecutor. For five years, every aspect of crime and justice across the whole state went before Parker, from fighting gun trafficking to sentencing reforms. Since 2019, Parker has been an NYPD deputy police commissioner for collaborative policing, first under Bill de Blasio and continuing under the Adams administration, as he discussed yesterday when Adams tapped him when Parker explained the Gun Violence Strategic Partnership: “An experiment of what would happen if all federal, state, local law enforcement, all of us work together and laser focus on the very, very small number of people who drive gun violence in New York City. “It is a partnership that has over 25 different agencies. All the DA’s, all the federal agencies, state partners, jails, prisons, everybody is working together side by side. So this experiment this morning, we had our 760th meeting in a row. Every morning at 10 a.m. this team comes together and reviews this small number of people.” Laser indeed. Having a deputy mayor for public safety wasn’t something that de Blasio or Mike Bloomberg or Rudy Giuliani had and the last mayor with such a position was David Dinkins. While the Fire Department, the Department of Correction, the Department of Probation, Emergency Management and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice are all in the deputy mayor portfolio, the NYPD is not. The police commissioner reports directly to the mayor. It’s been that way since Adams set up his cabinet in the first days of his term in 2022. Like Parker, NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon was not part of Adams’ circle from his cop career as he rose up to the rank of NYPD captain, but in this case, a longtime FBI man. Having the city’s police and emergency services, as well as its troubled jails, under two such men as Parker and Donlon (who may not be sticking around for long) puts professionalism first, as New Yorkers want and as Adams has delivered. The 761st meeting of the Gun Violence Strategic Partnership is coming up soon.