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John Miller (police official)

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John Miller
Miller in 2019
Born (1958-07-29) July 29, 1958 (age 66)
OccupationDeputy Commissioner New York Police Department
Years active1983–present
SpouseEmily Helen Altschul (m. 2002)
RelativesArthur Goodhart Altschul Sr. (father in law)
Siri von Reis (mother in law)
Serena Altschul (sister in law)
Frank Altschul (grandfather in law)
Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence & Counter-terrorism, New York City Police Department
In office
January 1, 2014 – June 28, 2022
Preceded byDavid Cohen

John Miller (born 1958)[1] is an American journalist and police official. From 1983 to 1994, he was a local journalist in New York City, before serving as the NYPD's chief spokesman from 1994 to 1995.

In 1995, Miller joined ABC News, and secured an interview with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998. From 2003 to 2011, he returned to law enforcement as a senior official in the LAPD and as Assistant Director for Public Affairs at the FBI. Miller was named a senior correspondent for CBS News in 2011.

Miller rejoined law enforcement as the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence & Counterterrorism from 2013 to 2022. After the NYPD, he was hired as CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst.

Early life

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Miller is the son of Lucinda and John J. Miller, a syndicated columnist and freelance writer[2] whose range of roles included Hollywood gossip columnist, foreign correspondent, Broadway critic, crime investigator, and political pundit. "My dad wrote seven columns under six different names... Antonio from Rome. Pierre from Paris. Nigel from London", Miller said. His father was also a close friend of a boss of the Luciano crime family, Frank Costello, whose wife, Lauretta, was Miller's godmother.[3]

Raised in Montclair, New Jersey, Miller attended Montclair High School, where he developed his interest in news and reporting by taking photos for sale to newspapers and skipping school to go to press briefings.[4][5]

Career

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Miller began work as a journalist in 1983 for WNEW, a television station in New York City. From 1985 to 1994, he worked as an investigative journalist for WNBC, another New York television station. Several times during his tenure at the station, he interviewed John Gotti.[6]

From 1994 to 1995, he served as the NYPD's chief spokesman as Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.[7] a move that some of his colleagues considered "going over to the dark side". He was hired at the request of then Commissioner William Bratton.[3]

Miller returned to journalism in 1995 as a ABC News correspondent. Using an al-Qaeda agent in London as an intermediary, Miller asked Mohammed Atef for an interview with Osama bin Laden in May 1998. Miller was told to go to Islamabad, Pakistan, and was escorted over the Afghan–Pakistani border to meet bin Laden in a camp near Kandahar. He asked bin Laden questions that were translated into Arabic by an al-Qaeda translator; bin Laden's answers were not translated, so Miller was not immediately aware of what bin Laden was saying during the interview.[8][9]

During his tenure at ABC, Miller also covered the September 11, 2001 attacks, where he sat alongside Peter Jennings for the duration of the day listening in to radio conversations from the FBI, the fire department, and the NYPD, informing Jennings and viewers of their content.[10]

In January 2002, Miller took the post of co-anchor with Barbara Walters of the ABC News program 20/20.[citation needed]

In January 2003, he left ABC News to rejoin Bratton, who by then was at the Los Angeles Police Department. Miller served as the police department's Bureau Chief for the Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau,[7] which included the Major Crimes Division, and the Emergency Services Division and the Special Investigations Section (SIS). While there, Miller launched Project Archangel which included the Automated Critical Asset Management System (ACAMS),[11] among other platforms, and which has been adopted by other cities and states for ongoing risk-assessment of potential terrorist targets. Miller was also one of the original designers of the Los Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center (JRIC), which combines intelligence and analysis for the LAPD, LA sheriff, and the FBI.

In September 2005, Miller became the Assistant Director for Public Affairs at the FBI in Washington, D.C. In this position, he was tasked with overseeing the FBI's internal and external communications, including relations with the news media and handling of fugitive publicity, community relations, and other communications support.[7] Miller also established an Employee Communications Unit to build stronger internal communications to the bureau's 31,000 employees.[citation needed] Among his collateral duties was to serve on the Strategic Execution Team (SET) to establish performance measurement standards for intelligence operations across the FBI's 56 field offices.[citation needed] The system, adapted from the CompStat process used by major police departments, was overseen by then-FBI Director Robert Mueller.[citation needed]

Miller left the FBI when he was named a senior correspondent for CBS News on October 17, 2011. In this capacity, Miller reported for all CBS News platforms and broadcasts, including CBS This Morning and occasionally 60 Minutes.[12][13] His he "Inside the NSA" episode of 60 Minutes in 2013 was criticized for justifying NSA's spying on American citizens.[14][15]

In December 2013, Miller resigned from CBS in order to become the Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence & Counterterrorism with the NYPD. Miller rejoined William Bratton, who had earlier been announced as the new NYPD Commissioner by Mayor Bill de Blasio.[16][17] At the end of July 2022, Miller retired from the NYPD.[18]

In September 2022, Miller became the chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst at CNN.[19]

Personal

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In 2002, Miller married Emily Altschul, daughter of Arthur Goodhart Altschul Sr.—a banker, a partner at Goldman Sachs Group, and a member of the Lehman family[2] and of Siri von Reis, a botanist. Miller's brother-in-law, Arthur Altschul, Jr., worked for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley before becoming chairman of Medicis Pharmaceuticals Corporation.[20] His sister-in-law is Serena Altschul, a former MTV video-jockey.

Awards and honors

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Miller's journalistic awards include two Peabody Awards,[21][22] a DuPont-Columbia Award,[23] and nine Emmys.[24]

Memberships and affiliations

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He is a member of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.[citation needed]

Miller is an instructor at the FBI's National Executive Institute, as well as the Leadership in Counterterrorism (LinCT) course and has attended training in organizational change at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government as well as the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.[citation needed]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Bratton: CBS News correspondent John Miller to be NYPD's counter-terrorism chief". Daily News. New York. January 3, 2014. The 55-year-old from New Jersey has held top jobs in the NYPD, FBI, and ran counter-terror efforts for the LAPD under Police Commissioner Bill Bratton
  2. ^ a b WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Emily Altschul, John Miller, The New York Times, November 24, 2002.
  3. ^ a b John Miller: CBS's Inside Man, Men's Journal, March 2013.
  4. ^ Kiesewetter, John. "Miller is reluctant co-anchor on '20-20'", The Cincinnati Enquirer, January 6, 2002. Accessed March 22, 2018. "As a ninth-grader in Montclair, N.J., in 1973, he would listen to the police scanner and ride his bike to crime stories. He'd take photographs and sell them to New York newspapers."
  5. ^ Staff. "Former Montclair resident John Miller to be special guest at 200 Club", The Record (Bergen County), April 28, 2016. Accessed March 22, 2018. "Miller, a former broadcast journalist, got his journalistic start as a student in Montclair High School, when he would cut class to attend press briefings in Newark, according to Essex County Sheriff’s Office representative Kevin Lynch."
  6. ^ Barmash, Jerry (October 27, 2011). "One-Time WNBC Reporter John Miller Headed for CBS' Early Show". AdWeek.
  7. ^ a b c John Miller Named Assistant Director of FBI Office of Public Affairs, FBI National Press Office, August 23, 2005.
  8. ^ Bharara, Preet (October 5, 2017). "Guns, Gotti & bin Laden". WYNC Studios.
  9. ^ Bergen, Peter (2006). The Osama Bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's Leader. Simon and Schuster. pp. 210–18. ISBN 0743278925.
  10. ^ Allison Gilbert; Phil Hirschkorn; Melinda Murphy; Robyn Walensky (2002). Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11. Bonus Books. p. 204. ISBN 9781566251808.
  11. ^ "Operation Archangel". Los Angeles Police Department.
  12. ^ Shaw, Lucas (October 17, 2011). "Veteran newsman John Miller joins CBS News". Reuters.
  13. ^ John Miller, biography on CBS.com.
  14. ^ Ackerman, Spencer (December 16, 2013). "NSA goes on 60 Minutes: the definitive facts behind CBS's flawed report". The Guardian.
  15. ^ Carr, David (December 22, 2013). "When '60 Minutes' Checks Its Journalistic Skepticism at the Door". The New York Times.
  16. ^ "CBS News' John Miller rejoining NYPD". CBS News. December 26, 2013.
  17. ^ Littleton, Cynthia (December 26, 2013). "CBS News Correspondent John Miller Rejoins NYPD". Variety.
  18. ^ "NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller retires". July 29, 2022.
  19. ^ "CNN hires ex-NYPD official, intelligence expert John Miller". Associated Press. September 6, 2022.
  20. ^ Profile of Arthur Altschul, Forbes
  21. ^ "The Peabody Awards". peabodyawards.com. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
  22. ^ "The Peabody Awards". peabodyawards.com. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
  23. ^ "2014 Winners - Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism". Archived from the original on December 28, 2013. Retrieved December 28, 2013. 2014 Winners
  24. ^ "John Miller Exiting CBS News to Return to NYPD". The Hollywood Reporter. December 26, 2013. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
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