Police Commissioner Resigns as Investigations Batter Adams’s Circle
Category: News & Politics
Via: hallux • 3 months ago • 8 commentsBy: Maria Cramer William K. Rashbaum and Chelsia Rose Marcius - NYT
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Edward A. Caban, the New York City police commissioner, resigned on Thursday at the request of City Hall, which had asked him to step aside after federal agents seized his phone last week as part of a criminal investigation.
In an email to members of the Police Department, Commissioner Caban, 57, said that the news reports about the investigations had “created a distraction for the department.”
“The N.Y.P.D. deserves someone who can solely focus on protecting and serving New York City, which is why — for the good of this city and this department — I have made the difficult decision to resign as police commissioner” he wrote in a memo that went out to the department late Thursday morning.
His resignation will be effective at the end of the day Friday, according to a person with knowledge of his plans.
City Hall has been buffeted by four federal investigations, which have resulted in searches and seizures targeting high-ranking officials. But an investigation involving the city’s top law enforcement official is rare, and it cast doubt on Commissioner Caban’s ability to supervise the department and make disciplinary decisions about his own force of 36,000 officers.
Mayor Adams, who addressed New Yorkers virtually on Thursday but did not take questions, explained the reasoning behind Commissioner Caban’s decision and announced an interim replacement: Thomas G. Donlon, a veteran F.B.I. counterterrorism official.
“Earlier this week, I spoke to you about the ongoing investigations that have come to light,” Mr. Adams said. “I was as surprised as you to learn of these inquiries, and I take them extremely seriously.”
Mr. Adams said that he had accepted the commissioner’s resignation and said Commissioner Caban “concluded that this is the best decision at this time.”
Commissioner Caban’s lawyers, Russell Capone and Rebekah Donaleski of the firm Cooley LLP, said in a statement that federal prosecutors had told them that he was not a target of the investigation, and that he intended to fully cooperate with the government. The two lawyers are former chiefs of the corruption unit at the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District.
Commissioner Caban, in his email to the department, said that his “complete focus has always been on the N.Y.P.D. — the department and people I love and have dedicated over 30 years of service to.”
But, he wrote, “the news around recent developments” had made staying in the job too difficult.
“I am unwilling to let my attention be on anything other than our important work, or the safety of the men and women of the N.Y.P.D.,” Commissioner Caban wrote.
Before announcing his resignation, Commissioner Caban had not publicly addressed the seizure of his phone or the investigation, but had told executives around the department that he had no intention of leaving, according to several people at the agency. In the days leading up to the resignation, several fraternal organizations, such as those who represent police officers who identify as Polish, Slavic or Asian, had sent out messages of support on their social media accounts, praising Commissioner Caban’s support for officers.
The commissioner had been at Police Headquarters as recently as Monday, when he attended an annual security briefing with Jewish leaders about the High Holy Days . But by late Wednesday, it had become clear that his future at the department was uncertain at best.
But he left open the question of whether Commissioner Caban would remain in his position.
“He’s going to make the determination of his next step,” Mr. Adams said.
Commissioner Caban’s departure followed days of speculation about when he would tell the mayor that he would leave. It was the second time in 15 months that a police commissioner appointed by Mr. Adams had quit, following Keechant Sewell’s resignation in June last year over being undermined by the mayor and his top aides.
During Commissioner Caban’s time as head of the department, police officials had tried to keep the focus on recent drops in the crime rate. In recent months, they have hailed the statistics at press briefings, attacked reporters who wrote critical pieces about department leaders and gone on conservative news stations like Newsmax to extol the declines. The department used slickly produced videos to portray its officers as heroes and to celebrate its successes in major cases and in taking guns off the street.
But the department’s successes have been overshadowed in recent months by the disarray in the Adams administration, Commissioner Caban’s role in at least one of the federal inquiries and public fights that the department’s top leaders have picked with reporters and city officials who were critical of them.
But there were also messages of support. The N.Y.P.D. Desi Society, which represents officers of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean descent, thanked him for his “positive influence” on department employees.
“Over the past year, Commissioner Caban has made significant strides in enhancing community relations, promoting precision policing, fostering collaboration between agencies, and building camaraderie within the department,” the group wrote on Wednesday on its Instagram account .
Federal agents have also seized the phones of the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright; her partner, Schools Chancellor David C. Banks; the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks III ; and a senior adviser to the mayor, Timothy Pearson.
Of the four investigations involving members of the Adams administration, Manhattan federal prosecutors are spearheading three. One is examining whether Mr. Adams and his campaign conspired with the government of Turkey to collect illegal foreign donations in exchange for approving a new consulate in Manhattan, despite safety concerns. Another is focused on senior City Hall officials, and the third includes Commissioner Caban, his brother and other police officials.
The Internal Revenue Service is involved in that investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter. The inquiry is examining a nightclub security business owned by the commissioner’s twin brother, James Caban, a former police officer who was fired from the department in 2001. James Caban also had his phone seized last week, according to one of the people.
None of the officials involved in the investigations have been charged with a crime, but the seizures upended the administration and raised questions about his ability to run New York. On Tuesday, during a news briefing, Mr. Adams said he felt the “awesome weight of that responsibility, and I would never do anything to betray your trust.”
The mayor, a retired police captain who served on the force with the commissioner’s father and was close to him, appointed Commissioner Caban in July 2023, making him the department’s first Latino commissioner .
Earlier, Mr. Adams had pushed for Commissioner Caban, who he had known through his father, to become deputy commissioner in 2022 under Commissioner Sewell, the first woman to hold the job. Mr. Adams ignored the department’s ranks of chiefs to make the promotion. Commissioner Caban succeeded Commissioner Sewell when she resigned in frustration in June 2023 after only 18 months.
Commissioner Caban was known as a calm, affable leader who touted his Puerto Rican heritage and often ceded the spotlight to more swaggering officials, like John Chell, the chief of the department, and Kaz Daughtry, the deputy commissioner of operations.
Since his appointment, Commissioner Caban had stopped the disciplinary cases of 54 officers from going to trial, more than any other commissioner, according to an analysis of data from the oversight board by ProPublica that was published by The New York Times in June. In response, he said he has handled far more cases than past department leaders.
Last month, he dismissed disciplinary charges against Jeffrey Maddrey, the chief of department, who had interfered with the arrest of a retired officer who had chased three boys while armed.
In his email, Commissioner Caban said he had “complete faith in the leaders across the N.Y.P.D.”
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Damn it Adams, I told you to hire Wednesday ... meh!