Police Commissioner Edward Caban on Monday hammered the final nail into the coffin of an effort to punish one of his top deputies for intervening in the arrest of a retired cop charged with menacing three young men with a gun.
Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey was found by a police oversight board to have “improperly influenced an arrest” by voiding charges against an ex-cop who was once one of his subordinates.
The cop, Kruythoff Forrester, had been charged in 2021 with threatening the youths after he said they tossed a basketball at a security camera outside his family’s storefront in Brooklyn. THE CITY won an Edward R. Murrow award last week for a video investigation documenting Maddrey’s actions.
Last year the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) recommended Maddrey lose 10 vacation days as punishment, a sanction approved by former Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. But Maddrey contested Sewell’s finding and, after Caban replaced Sewell, the case wound up before NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Trials Rosemary Maldonado.
Last month Maldonado ruled CCRB did not have jurisdiction to prosecute Maddrey, whose lawyers had argued that the voiding of the arrest did not have a direct impact on members of the public. Her ruling was then subject to Caban’s final say.
On Monday Caban stamped “Approved” on her ruling without discussing his reasoning. On Tuesday Clare Platt, a CCRB spokesperson, stated, “The agency is not commenting at this time.”
The NYPD has said a thorough investigation of the incident ordered by Maddrey led to the release of Forrester, but video taken at the precinct station house makes clear that Forrester was released less than three hours after his arrest and 90 minutes after Maddrey showed up.
And while Maddrey’s lawyers have contended that the sergeant who decided to make the arrest was inexperienced and Forrester denied drawing his gun as he chased the three boys, in videotaped interviews two of the three youths each independently gave accurate and matching descriptions of Forrester’s gun. That corroboration prompted the sergeant to make the arrest.
The families of the three youths filed a lawsuit against Forrester in 2022. Two weeks ago Forrester’s lawyers filed papers denying all of the accusations and asking a judge to dismiss the case. The suit remains pending.
