NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard said Monday that he was “surprised” to hear that newly minted interim Police Commissioner Thomas Donlon had his homes raided by the feds on Friday but pledged that the ongoing investigations are not impeding cops form keeping the city safe.
The comments came during Sheppard’s Sept. 23 appearance on NY1, where he discussed the recent black marks staining the department — including the controversial Brooklyn subway shooting that left a cop injured and an innocent bystander with brain injuries and the federal raid on Donlon’s homes.
Donlon released a statement over the weekend admitting that materials had been confiscated from his possession one week after his predecessor, Edward Caban, resigned amidst his own federal probe. Donlon maintained the raid had nothing to do with any other ongoing investigation involving the NYPD.
While surprised by news of the raid, Sheppard said he was supportive of the interim commissioner — and said that police officials just want to see an end to the controversy.
“My reaction was just being surprised, however, also being supportive. I don’t know what this is about. The commissioner has made a statement that it’s unrelated to his new assignment as being interim police commissioner, and we just have to support him through that,”Sheppard told NY1. “I think he’s going to retain his own counsel, and he’ll deal with the federal authorities and cooperate like he said he would.”
The Donlon raid occurred not only amid the federal investigation of top police officials like Caban and his twin brother but also in separate probes involving Mayor Eric Adams and members of his administration.
Sheppard said he understood why the public may have shaky faith in NYPD, but underscored that nobody in the administration has yet been charged with a crime.
“We can’t assume because we have investigations going on, we should assume that people are guilty of anything. Like everyone else, you have to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and what we need to do as police officers is just continue to keep New Yorkers safe,” Sheppard said. “We can’t get into the results of an investigation that we’re not conducting, and we don’t get into the mood of New Yorkers. Our job is to keep them safe.”
In a recent anonymous interview with amNewYork Metro, several members of the NYPD’s rank-and-file expressed feeling embarrassed and ashamed over seeing the department getting slammed with scandals.
On Monday, Sheppard said that he believes most rank-and-file officers just want to see the issues come to an end but, even so, he says they are not distracted by the process — going as far as to say that the processes is overshadowing the work that patrol cops are doing.
“I think many of them just want finality to all this, but when you look at the work that they are doing keeping the city safe, its the safest August we have ever had,” Sheppard said. “Just a lot of credit to them that while all of this stuff is looming and going on, they’re still keeping New Yorkers safe and still doing what they have to do and staying motivated. So many of us want to see this conclusion to all of this.”
