NEW YORK TIMES 🔵 How Maddrey Became the N.Y.P.D.’s Top Officer Despite Years of Scandal

Over the years, Jeffrey B. Maddrey toiled as a beat cop in half a dozen Brooklyn precincts. He nurtured hundreds of officers he oversaw as an inspector. He quelled violent crime in a dangerous part of Brownsville.

But not until he shepherded officers through the pain and anger of seeing one of their own shot dead in 2011 did he attain the high profile that would later undo him.

After the officer, Peter Figoski, was killed while trying to stop a robbery, Mr. Maddrey became the face of law enforcement in the 75th Precinct. He spoke to reporters about the murder and led a weeklong search for the fatal bullet. At the funeral on Long Island, he handed the Figoski family a folded American flag.

Mr. Maddrey “has certainly been in our sights for a while as someone deserving of recognition,” said then-Commissioner Raymond Kelly at a ceremony in which he posthumously promoted Officer Figoski to detective and elevated Mr. Maddrey to deputy chief.

The base of support Mr. Maddrey built in those years with Brooklyn pastors, rabbis, anti-violence groups and politicians — including, crucially, Eric Adams, a former police captain who would become mayor — vaulted him to the highest uniformed rank of the nation’s largest police department. It insulated him during a string of scandals — until the one that ended his career.