NYPD's Controversial Top Chief To Retire

By Yoav Gonen, The City

October 8, 2025

The highest-ranking uniformed officer in the NYPD, Chief of Department John Chell, has told members of his office that he’s retiring with under three months to go in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, according to current and former NYPD sources.

The move marks the end of the 31-year career of a sometimes polarizing figure who, as Chief of Department, oversaw a decline in crime this year that mirrored national trends while taking strong public stands in favor of aggressive policing tactics.

As a visible public face for the department under Adams, Chell made dozens of television appearances while lashing out there and on social media at elected officials, judges and journalists he saw as “anti-police.” The city’s Department of Investigation would later characterize those posts as “unprofessional.”

Chell appeared in his NYPD uniform at a Donald Trump presidential campaign rally at Madison Square Garden and more recently traveled with a colleague to New Jersey for a private golf outing with the president.

Within the department, he’s been hailed by some for his intense work ethic while others have raised questions about the harmful consequences of his often aggressive approach to policing.

Most notably, as Chief of Patrol from late 2022 to late 2024, Chell oversaw a change in practice that directed officers to pursue fleeing vehicles more often.

“People thinking they can take off on us, those days are over,” Chell declared that July.

NYPD Chief of Department John Chell oversees the arrest of protesters in Trump Tower, March 13, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

That shift led to a nearly sixfold surge in police pursuits during the first six months of 2023 — and a sharp increase in dangerous and sometimes deadly collisions with cars and pedestrians.

The following year saw more than a collision a day on average associated with the pursuits, according to NYPD data. Overall in 2023 and 2024, vehicle pursuits resulted in 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries to suspects, cops, and innocent bystanders alike, the data shows. Lawsuits stemming from those incidents are still winding their way through courts.

Chell and former NYPD official Kaz Daughtry, now Adams’ deputy mayor for public safety, had launched and oversaw the unit responsible for many of the pursuits, the Community Response Team (CRT).

The unit had a reputation for forceful enforcement of quality of life issues such as fake license plates and illegal scooters across the city, but also was found by the city’s Department of Investigation to have no written policies, procedures or guidelines — and no required training for its members.

It operated in the shadows under Chell and Daughtry to such an extent that interim police commissioner Thomas Donlon asserted in a lawsuit he filed this year against Adams, Chell and other top NYPD leaders alleging a conspiracy to advance their interests at the expense of the public that he wasn’t briefed on its operations once during his three-month tenure.

“The secrecy was deliberate,” Donlon alleged in his lawsuit. “CRT was used to harass, injure, and violate the rights of civilians, particularly in communities of color, with no regard for constitutional safeguards.”

Adams and a former NYPD official responded to the lawsuit by suggesting Donlon’s mental acuity had been deteriorating.

Chell was promoted to chief of department on Jan. 1 by Commissioner Jessica Tisch. He replaced Jeffrey Maddrey, Chell’s friend and mentor who resigned last December amid allegations by a former underling that he had coerced sexual favors from her in exchange for overtime.

Maddrey has denied the allegations while acknowledging having had an “office fling.”

As the top uniformed cop, Chell has overseen a 4% decline from January through September in most major crimes compared to the same period last year. This includes a 17% drop in the murder rate, mirroring a national trend, but there has also been a 19% increase in reported rapes.

His work has earned him praise from Tisch and Adams, who in July thanked Chell and Daughtry “for being up at 2, 3, 4 a.m. in the morning responding to crisis after crisis, going after people who want to hurt and harm working-class people.”

In January, Tisch revised the NYPD’s approach to vehicle pursuits, restricting chases to instances where suspects are believed to have committed serious crimes.

Chell didn’t respond to a message via X seeking comment, and the mayor’s office referred questions to the police department — which didn’t respond to multiple emails seeking comment.

The Daily News, which first reported Chell’s pending retirement, said he was filing for a three-quarter disability pension based on an ankle injury that occurred last year. That would entitle him to 75% of his final salary, annually. Chell’s salary last year as chief of patrol was just over $276,000, according to public records.

A Bumpy Trajectory

Two retired NYPD members who have worked closely with Chell told THE CITY few people love the job of policing more than he does.

“You’re not going to get anybody who worked as hard, who cared as much as he does, who worked the number of hours as he did,” one of them said. THE CITY granted them anonymity to enable them to speak freely.

But they said Chell changed as he climbed the ranks, becoming unpredictable and harsh when underlings made mistakes — despite having his own checkered history of misconduct.

They and many other former NYPD members say Chell breezed past two major incidents during his career that could have been job-killers for other members of the force.

In 2008, Chell shot an unarmed 25-year-old in the back following a vehicle pursuit in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Chell claimed his gun had gone off accidentally when Ortanzso Bovell, who the cops believed was driving a stolen vehicle, backed the car toward Chell and knocked him down.

But a civil jury in Brooklyn rejected that claim, calling the shooting intentional and awarding Bovell’s family $2.5 million in 2017, which was later lowered under a settlement with the city to $1.5 million.

NYPD Chief of Department John Chell attends a Bellevue press conference about an officer who was shot in the line of duty, Feb. 18, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

In 2012, in misconduct that wasn’t known publicly until it was reported by THE CITY earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service informed the NYPD that Chell was under investigation for federal tax fraud.

The allegations included that Chell had used the identity of other people in reporting income he made moonlighting as a basketball referee at Chelsea Piers from 1997 to 2003.

Chell pleaded guilty to departmental charges the next year of willfully attempting to evade a federal tax, but he was docked just 10 vacation days, the personnel records show.

When THE CITY asked Adams in August why Chell was the right person for chief of department despite the tax fraud incident, he answered, “Many years of good policing.”

Adams has also defended Chell against criticism that he and Daughtry were being too inflammatory in social media attacks in 2024 against those who they deemed overly critical of department leadership.

The posts, including one that claimed left-wing Queens City Council member Tiffany Caban “hates our city,” prompted Council Speaker Adrienne Adams to request an investigation from the city’s Department of Investigation.

In January, just weeks after Chell was appointed chief of department, the agency found that Chell and Daughtry’s posts had been “demeaning” and “unprofessional.”

Chell had argued that he was simply defending the members of the police department, and Adams, in April 2024, said he took no issue with Chell speaking up.

“I want the leaders of the administration to stand up for police officers who are placing their lives on the line,” Adams said at the time

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.