New York Police Commissioner Resigns Amid Federal Probe

Authored by Michael Washburn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

New York City Police Commissioner Edward Caban on Sept. 12 resigned from his position, days after his phone was seized in a federal investigation.

Caban said he made the decision to resign after the “news around recent developments” had “created a distraction for our department,” according to an email to the police department obtained by The Associated Press.

“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 NYPD,” he added.

The Epoch Times has contacted the New York Police Department for more details.

New York Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that he accepted Caban’s resignation. “I respect his decision and I wish him well,” he said in a streamed appearance from the Mayor’s mansion.

Caban had been on the job for a little over a year, having been appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in July 2023.

The resignation comes as part of a federal probe of high-ranking members of the Adams administration.

On Sept. 4, federal law enforcement officials seized Caban’s phone and those of his brother James, Adams’s first deputy mayor, schools chancellor, and others close to the mayor.

Federal agents also raided the homes of several administration officials. Federal authorities have not disclosed the subject of the investigation or whether there are multiple probes.

Adams said that Tom Donlon, a law enforcement veteran with experience in antiterrorism efforts, has been appointed interim commissioner.

Donlon served as the city’s director of the Office of Homeland Security, led the FBI’s national threat center, and played a role in investigating the 1993 World Trade Center attack. He started his own security firm in 2020.

In the days leading up to the resignation, members of the New York City Council, which has feuded repeatedly with the mayor over issues such as solitary confinement in the city’s jails, the accommodation of migrants from out of state, and the recording of data on persons whom the police arrest, pushed for Caban to step down.

In November 2023, agents took the mayor’s phone and iPad in order to examine them for evidence relating to his fundraising activities during his 2021 mayoral run.

As police commissioner, Caban has played a central role in Adams’s efforts to fight crime and promote public safety. But under Caban’s leadership, the NYPD’s recent record on this front has been mixed.

According to NYPD statistics for the week ending Sept. 8, 251 murders have occurred in New York City so far in 2024, only a relatively slight decline from the 288 recorded for the same period in 2023.

In other categories of serious crime, such as rapes and robberies, the rates are higher than the same period last year, the figures show.

A total of 1,119 rapes happened in the city in the first nine months of 2024, compared to 1,008 in the same period in 2023, while 11,536 robberies were recorded, up from 11,358 in the equivalent 2023 period.

In an email to The Epoch Times, Brendan McGuire, an attorney at the law firm WilmerHale which is representing Adams in the federal probe, said he had no comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.