New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, is joined by New York City Police Dept. Chief of Department Philip Banks during a news conference, in New York, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014. Police were rounding up 18 people in New York City on Thursday on allegations they sold "party packs" of cocaine and sex to high-end clients and texted their customers to advertise ahead of this week's Super Bowl festivities. (AP Photo)

NEW YORK -- When Bill Bratton was sworn in as head of the New York Police Department in January, he pledged to improve relations between New Yorkers of color and “every member" of his department.

The abrupt resignation of the department’s highest-ranking black official on Friday may make that task harder.

NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks, a 28-year veteran of the force, walked away after rejecting a promotion. The Daily News, citing anonymous sources, reported that Banks feared the promotion “would bury him behind a desk.”

Bratton told reporters on Friday that he and Banks never fought over policy, saying “we were very simpatico in the understanding that the culture of the department needed to be reshaped” -- a clear reference to tense relations with communities of color.

But some observers raised an eyebrow at the claim that Bank's resignation had nothing to do with the department's handling of race. “Most likely, his conscience took the best of him,” said Damon Jones, the local representative of Blacks in Law Enforcement of America, a group that advocates for black officers. “I applaud him.”

Bratton became commissioner amid outrage over the department’s stop-and-frisk policy, which critics say inflicted disproportionate harm on young blacks and Latinos who had done nothing wrong. Mayor Bill De Blasio, who appointed Bratton, pledged to reform the practice. So far, he and Bratton appear to have made good on that promise, as the number of stop-and-frisk encounters has dramatically declined.

But Bratton’s tenure has been marked by several other racially charged developments. In July, Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, died after police put him in a chokehold while attempting to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. In response, Bratton announced that the entire department would be retrained.

The death drew attention to Bratton’s policy of cracking down hard on petty offenses like pot possession and dancing in the subway. Critics say this “broken windows” strategy lands especially hard on people of color.

Until now, those critics have rarely included members of the city’s political establishment. But Bank’s resignation seems to have opened the floodgates.

“His departure from the department could not have come at a more delicate time,”said state Assemblyman Karim Camara (D), chair of the assembly's Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic Legislative Caucus, in a statement. “There was no one better strategically placed to strike the necessary balance between respecting and yet also effectively protecting local communities."