From crime-riddled Queens streets to the top echelon of the country’s largest police department, Kaz Daughtry took amNewYork Metro back to where he grew up days after being promoted to Deputy Commissioner of Operations during Black History Month.
As Daughtry looked upon the courtyard of Lefrak City he saw it not as it is but as it was decades ago — a vastly different landscape. According to the newly minted Deputy Commissioner of Operations, his old stomping grounds were rife with gang members and violence. The surroundings themselves bore a reflection of this unkempt, unhealthy lifestyle with needles, caps, and other drug refuge discarded in the dirt and shrubbery.
“I went up to Chief Maddrey — Officer Maddrey at the time — and asked him what these things were. He said: ‘I never went to see you picking those things up again, they are bad for you.’ I had to be 11, 12 years old,” Daughtry told amNewYork Metro.
Daughtry referred to now-Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who at the time they first met was assigned to the 110th Precinct, which covers Lefrak City.
This is where Daughtry’s long road to the NYPD began, as a child and being the subject of a tug-of-war between the concerns of his mother and the attempted recruitment of gang members.
Even back then, in the early 1990s, he knew he wanted to be different than the sum of his parts, rather than the cruel and nefarious intentions of those around him — he yearned to take the road less traveled.
“I wanted to have something to do with law enforcement but I didn’t know if it was a police officer, a secret service agent, FBI, but I knew I wanted to do something to help people,” Daughtry recalled. “I knew that was my calling.”
While Daughtry refused to accept gang life offered by the older boys on the block, his future became more apparent after becoming fast friends with Maddrey, who guided him to join the NYPD Explorers program for youths interested in law enforcement careers….
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