Mayor Eric Adams has tapped a retired FBI leader from The Bronx to head the nation’s largest police department on an interim basis, following Thursday’s resignation of embattled former commissioner Edward Caban, whose home was raided by the FBI a week ago.
Thomas Donlon had served in the FBI for 31 years, including as its chief of the National Threat Operations Center, and had previously worked on the agency’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, where his cases included the investigation of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, according to a bio provided by City Hall.
Donlon also served briefly as New York’s Director of Homeland Security starting in February 2009, an appointment made by then-Gov. David Paterson — who said Donlon is the right pick for Adams to restore order at a messy time for the police department.
In addition to its action on Caban, the FBI confiscated the phones of at least a half-dozen other NYPD officials in Manhattan and Queens, according to multiple sources.
“I really think this is a no-nonsense guy and he’s also a detail guy, and he’ll be perfect,” Paterson told THE CITY about Donlon. “They got a really good guy this time.”
Among the state senators who confirmed Donlon’s appointment in 2009 was Adams, who said at the time that the governor “could not have found a better person” to take the homeland security post.
At the FBI, Donlon developed the agency’s first centralized terrorism threat database, known as “Guardian,” according to the City Hall bio and a similar one posted on the website of a firm Donlan founded in 2020, Global Security Resolutions.
Along with helping to investigate the 1993 WTC bombing, Donlon also had a hand in helping investigate the 9/11 attack and the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa, and the USS Cole bombing near Yemen, his biography says.
Starting in the mid-aughts, Donlon worked as director of security for a number of major firms, including Blackrock and Credit Suisse.
The appointment of someone external from the police force who hadn’t served as a cop during his career could cause some chafing internally, said retired NYPD Detective Sergeant Felipe Rodriguez, who is also an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
“Cops like to be led by cops,” he said. “We want somebody who did the job, that understands.”
But Rodriguez noted an external party at a time when so many top NYPD figures were under the scrutiny of the feds could help the new commissioner “clean house.”
Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly agreed that this was the right time for Adams to look externally for solutions to the NYPD’s crisis.
“Tom Donlon seems to be a good selection,” he told NY1. “I think it was the right thing for the mayor to go outside the police department at this time for an interim choice.” He also reflected, “We’ve had other investigations in the past, but I looked back on history and I don’t see any since 1901 when the police commissioner decided to leave because of an investigation.”
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment on Donlon’s work history or his appointment.
Additional reporting by Gwynne Hogan.
