Adams Taps Close Associate for Top Public Safety Job

Mayor Eric Adams of New York has chosen Kaz Daughtry, a deputy police commissioner known for his combative social media presence and close relationship with the mayor, to be deputy mayor for public safety, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Daughtry will replace Chauncey Parker, a former prosecutor who announced his resignation this week alongside three other deputy mayors.

The resignations followed a push last week by the Justice Department to drop corruption charges against Mr. Adams, an effort that the former acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan criticized as a quid pro quo to secure Mr. Adams’s cooperation with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

As deputy mayor for public safety, Mr. Parker was deeply involved in decisions about the city’s role in Mr. Trump’s deportation efforts. He attended a meeting last week with Mr. Adams and Thomas Homan, Trump’s border czar.

Mr. Daughtry had been a detective in the Police Department until Mr. Adams became mayor in 2022. Under the Adams administration, he was elevated to high-ranking positions despite a lack of policy, administrative or supervisory experience.

Mr. Daughtry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, Kayla Mamelak Altus, declined to discuss the appointment, saying: “Personnel announcements are not official until we make them.”

Last month, Mr. Adams discussed Mr. Daughtry’s swift rise within the department in a YouTube interview with Corey Pegues, a retired deputy inspector.

Mr. Pegues asked Mr. Adams about internal “friction” Mr. Daughtry’s elevation had caused.

“Love Kaz, man,” said Mr. Adams, a former police captain. “He has lived up to everything that I expected of him.”

He added: “Yes, people may look at it and say, well, you know, this guy has jumped quickly. He’s not the first.”

Mr. Adams pointed to Jack Maple, who was a lieutenant with the city’s transit police when Commissioner William J. Bratton appointed him as a deputy commissioner in 1994. Mr. Maple, who died in 2001, was considered the architect of the department’s Compstat program, helping to script the department’s crime control strategy.

Unlike Mr. Maple, however, Mr. Daughtry never supervised a unit before he was promoted. He joined the department in 2006 as a patrol officer in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and had become a detective before his promotion to assistant commissioner in July 2023. He was promoted to deputy commissioner of operations in February 2024.

His rise was widely attributed within the department to his close relationships with the mayor and the former chief of department, Jeffrey Maddrey. Mr. Daughtry has served as Mr. Maddrey’s driver and, later, as his chief of staff and City Hall liaison.

Mr. Daughtry had been close to Mr. Maddrey since Mr. Daughtry was a boy.

In an interview with The New York Times in August, Mr. Daughtry said it was Mr. Maddrey who encouraged him to become a police officer.

“I have the best teacher in the city,” he said. “I went to the University of Maddrey.”

Mr. Maddrey resigned in December after he was accused of coercing a female subordinate into sex in exchange for overtime opportunities. Mr. Maddrey has denied the allegations. He is now under federal investigation.

At the department, Mr. Daughtry quickly developed a reputation as a brash, confrontational executive, who slammed reporters and detractors on social media and exuded a tough, streetwise persona in videos posted by the department’s media relations office.

Videos have circulated of him commanding officers in Harlem to use a stun gun on a man who was already on the ground but appeared to be resisting arrest. In another video, made when he was still a detective, he was seen charging into a crowd of protesters in Lower Manhattan and throwing a demonstrator to the pavement.

More recently, Mr. Daughtry helped created a community response team, a specialized unit that focuses on quality-of-life issues such as illegal motorbikes and scooters.

Mr. Adams praised the team, but it has also been criticized for being too aggressive. In November, the Police Department’s inspector general issued a report saying that the 165-member unit had expanded quickly without providing a clear sense of its mission. The report said it was also marked by a lack of transparency that risked “noncompliance with the law, ethical breaches and negative policing outcomes.”

During the interview with The Times in August, Mr. Daughtry downplayed his relationship with Mr. Adams.

“We’re not friends,” he said. “He’s the boss. You’re not friends with the boss.”

Mr. Daughtry also dismissed the criticism that he lacked experience as a manager, saying his decisions are based on moving the department forward and acting in the best interest of police officers.

“I get criticized all the time,” he said. “People are always going to criticize every decision that I make. And I really, I really don’t care.”