Even As He Is Probed, Acting NYC Police Head Donlon Hopes To Stay

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s decision to appoint Thomas Donlon, a 71-year-old former FBI agent, as interim police commissioner, seemed to bring a sense of stability to a department rocked by several federal inquiries. It didn’t last long. A week after his appointment, Donlon acknowledged that he was the subject of a federal probe. FBI agents came to his home with a warrant and demanded he return files he had taken more than 20 years ago when he left the agency. His acting chief of staff, Terri Tobin, and other supervisors stepped aside about a month after they started their roles for reasons that remain unclear, the New York Times reports. On Nov. 3, the commissioner had a public spat during the New York City Marathon with his acting chief of staff, Tarik Sheppard. The men argued so vociferously during a photo opportunity that they had to be separated.

Still, Donlon wants to stay as police commissioner. “He has no intention of leaving,” said Mark Carroll, a friend and retired federal prosecutor who has known him for 44 years. “He likes the job, and he likes the work. He enjoys helping people and doing public service. That’s been his whole career.” He became Adams’s third police commissioner on Sept. 13, replacing Edward Caban, who quit after the seizure of his phone by federal officials investigating members of Adams’s administration. Adams’s first commissioner, Keechant Sewell, resigned last year. Donlon is going to roll calls and visiting crime hot spots. He talks daily to chiefs and deputy commissioners who said he is curious and eager to learn the intricacies of a vast agency with more 50,000 employees, just over 34,000 of them uniformed police officers. Residents remain skeptical that the department has controlled violence despite falling crime rates, and many officers are feeling overwhelmed by long hours, tensions with the public and sagging morale. Twenty-three percent of officers surveyed last year said they were ready to leave the department or the profession, found a study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice and DeSales University.