The NYPD under Mayor Adams engaged in deadly and unconstitutional high-speed vehicle chases outside the chain of command, Ex-NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon alleged in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday against the city, current and former high ranking officers and the mayor.
Donlon, who ran NYPD from September to November of last year, filed the civil racketeering case against the city, Mayor Adams, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry, Chief of Department John Chell and several other current and former police officials.
In the 250-page complaint, Donlon accused Adams and company of running a "coordinated criminal conspiracy," citing high-speed vehicle pursuits to show how Adams and his cadre's corruption created an unsafe environment for New Yorkers.
During Donlon’s tenure as commissioner, a driver fleeing police struck and killed cyclist Amanda Servedio in Astoria, where Streetsblog's reporting identified a high concentration of chases resulting in crashes relative to the rest of the city.
The pursuit policy, according to Donlon’s complaint, was a product of the NYPD's highly publicized Community Response Team, an "elite crime fighting unit" created by Mayor Adams in 2022. The news outlet The City, first rang the alarm on the increase in police pursuits citywide in July of 2023. In the first three months of that year, pursuits increased nearly 600 percent.
Donlon said the "rogue" team operated outside the chain of command, and that now-Deputy Mayor Daughtry, who ran the team, answered only to Adams.
“[The CRT] was a rogue enforcement team that operated outside the NYPD’s traditional chain of command, answerable only to City Hall,” Donlon's complaint alleged. “Daughtry treated the unit as a personal fiefdom, allowing officers to pursue both real and imagined suspects at high speed through city streets, frequently in violation of NYPD policy. These pursuits often resulted in serious injury and, in some cases, death.”
The complaint cited an Aug. 12, 2023 chase that resulted in injuries to five cops on Staten Island, and a second pursuit just days later when two children were injured when the fleeing driver hit another car. That same week, a cyclist was hit and critically injured by a suspect fleeing the NYPD, the filing said.
Kayla Mamelak-Altus, a spokeswoman for Mayor Adams, called Donlon's claims "baseless accusations from a disgruntled former employee who... proved himself to be ineffective."
"This suit is nothing more than an attempt to seek compensation at the taxpayer’s expense after Mr. Donlon was rightfully removed from the role of interim police commissioner," Mamelak-Altus said in a statement. "The NYPD is led by the best, brightest and most honorable professionals in the nation — and their results speak for themselves: crime continues to fall across the city, with shootings at the lowest level in recorded history. We will respond in court, where we are confident these absurd claims will be disproven.”
Disregarding a deadly problem
After the three incidents in October, then-Chief of Department Maddrey issued an internal memo to top officials, including Chell and Daughtry, reiterating the department’s chase policy, the lawsuit said. The policy at the time discouraged chases, emphasizing that "a vehicle pursuit must be terminated whenever the risks to members of the service and the public outweigh the danger to the community if the suspect is not immediately apprehended."
But the pursuits did not stop. Servedio’s death showed the enduring practice and its deadly consequences. According to The City, police chases continued to increase citywide. In the first 11 months of 2024, 398 crashes occurred after police chases, causing 315 injuries. A 47 percent increase from the year prior, even after the memo.
The court filing goes on to document a systemic coverup of the police pursuit practice, alleging that Adams’s “inner circle” — namely Daughtry, Chell, and Maddrey — all conspired to keep Donlon in the dark.
“CRT’s activities were intentionally concealed from Donlon by Defendants Maddrey, Chell and Daughtry… The exclusion of the Police Commissioner (orchestrated by those in Defendant ADAMS’s inner circle), from oversight of a citywide enforcement unit reflects a profound breakdown in command accountability,” the complaint said.
When Adams appointed Jessica Tisch as police commissioner in November of last year, one of her first moves was to end the dangerous vehicle pursuit practice.
Under Tisch, vehicle pursuits have dramatically decreased.
NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.
