Edward Caban will have the “acting” label removed from his job title as the NYPD’s 46th commissioner, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday — less than a month after his predecessor Keechant Sewell abruptly resigned.
With the July 17 appointment outside the 40th Precinct in the Bronx, Adams elevated Caban from his status as acting commissioner to the NYPD’s official next top cop. The Bronx precinct is where Caban made his bones as a rookie in 1991.
Formerly serving as Sewell’s first deputy commissioner, Caban assumed the acting title July 1, after Sewell suddenly stepped down last month over reported tensions between her and the mayor. He makes history as the first Latino to lead the department.
During the announcement, Adams drew a parallel between his own story, of struggling with dyslexia as a child to becoming mayor, and Caban’s.
“I think about every mother, who right now is cleaning someone’s office, cleaning someone’s home, cleaning the streets and hoping one day that this dyslexic child that they have can grow up to be the mayor of the city of New York,” Adams said. “And one day, this young man of Puerto Rican ancestry can go from watching his dad be a transit cop to being the top cop in the city.”
Adams also appointed Chief Tania Kinsella to replace Caban as the new first deputy commissioner of the NYPD. She will be the first woman of color to hold the post.
Caban comes from a police family; as a transit police detective his father served as the president of the Transit Police Hispanic Society. Caban followed in their footsteps when he became a patrol officer in the South Bronx over three decades ago in 1991. He was promoted to sergeant three years later and then again promoted to lieutenant in 1999. Caban continued to rise through the ranks of the NYPD until he became the NYPD’s first deputy commissioner in 2022.
Caban proudly made his return to the Bronx as the highest-ranking police official and as the first ever Hispanic person to hold the title, something he says is of great significance to him.
Caban, however, also carries a history of misconduct complaints from his many years on the force. The incidents include a 1997 complaint, substantiated by the city’s NYPD watchdog — the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) — that Caban had abused his power by not divulging the identities of two officers a woman was seeking to file a complaint against.
Then in 2006, Caban was hit with several complaints for stopping and frisking an unnamed man in East Harlem. Among the charges were that Caban allegedly pushed the man face-first into the patrol car and hit him in the lower back. He then allegedly kicked the man’s legs apart and put him in handcuffs.
The man also alleged that Caban then told him he’s “getting ready with the broomstick,” which appeared to reference the infamous 1997 incident where several NYPD officers brutally beat and raped a man named Abner Louima with a broken broomstick.
Caban was cleared by the CCRB of most complaints connected to the incident, including the use of force and broomstick allegations, which were both deemed “unfounded.”
The review board did, however, substantiate a complaint that Caban had issued a “retaliatory summons.” Caban was diciplined with “instruction” — where cops are retrained on police procedure — for that complaint.
Sources within the department told amNewYork Metro that Caban is well-liked and respected, much like his predecessor who resigned after reported friction between her and Adams hit a breaking point. Sewell’s unceremonious exit after just 18 months on the job came amidst what sources reported as frustrations over her power being undermined by men in her orbit, namely Adams’ Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks III.
Things seemed to hit a point of no return when Sewell recommended dicipline against NYPD Chief of Department Jeffery Maddrey, a close ally of the mayor, for intervening in a 2021 gun arrest involving one of his former colleagues. After that move by Sewell, Adams reportedly started having her run all departmental promotions by City Hall, effectively handcuffing her in one of her job’s core functions.
Sources say they believe Sewell was a great loss to the police force and the ghost of her swift resignation hung heavy over Monday’s announcement.
Under Sewell’s brief tenure, the city saw a nearly 25% decrease in shootings when compared with the same period last year, according to NYPD crime data released earlier this month. That’s a trend Caban hopes to maintain as he makes history with his appointment.
— Ben Brachfeld contributed to this report
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