One was inspired by the attacks on the World Trade Center, the other is continuing a family legacy.
Aaron Edwards and Charles Minch were recently named two of the NYPD’s newest assistant chiefs at a ceremony at police headquarters in Lower Manhattan — arriving there through different paths.
Edwards, 45, was still in college when terrorists ravaged the Big Apple on Sept. 11, 2001 — and his beloved city’s darkest hour set in motion his future as one of New York’s Finest.
“I was a college student back in September 2001,” the new commanding officer of the NYPD’s Patrol Borough Manhattan North told The Post. “I saw what happened, and I took one of the first tests” afterward for the academy.
“I saw it, I felt it. When everyone was running out [of the Twin Towers], we had our police officers and the other first-responders running in. I thought that was selfless heroism. It just drew me to the profession,” Edwards said. “Since I started, I fell in love with policing.”
The married father of two from Huntington, LI, calls his new command “a snapshot of the city” — a patrol borough that runs from Central Park to Harlem and Inwood, “a beautiful mosaic picture of New York City.”
Edwards joined the force in July 2003, and his time on the job has run the gamut from street patrol to narcotics to administrative roles during the COVID-19 pandemic and the more recent migrant crisis.
That challenge came when he was commanding officer of the Midtown South Precinct.
“We took over at a really tough time,” he said of himself and his staff. “We were having some real crime challenges, and we started seeing that there was a migrant crisis, and just navigating that and, you know, all that it took to kind of bring the city back down.
“We started to see that crime lower now,” he said. “I feel like I was part of that. We saw people really afraid after COVID, and now we’re starting to see its coming back to those pre-COVID times.”
Minch, 51, also of Long Island, was the executive officer at Patrol Borough Brooklyn South before his promotion to assistant chief and the patrol borough’s new commanding officer.
“My dad was a retired detective, first-grade detective on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and he worked on a lot of high-profile domestic terrorism cases,” Minch told The Post. “He served 25 years with the department, so between us we have 52 and a half years and counting.
“I always just looked up to him, always wanted to follow in his footsteps and I joined the department at the earliest time I could.
“If you add my grandfather, who was a 20-year fireman, we have 77 and-a-half years of public service to New York City.”
The father of two grown boys said his promotion is now the high point of his NYPD career.
The two men’s promotions come as Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch is pushing to replenish department ranks. Last week, she announced a record-high 4,000 new NYPD recruits — even as the cop union the Police Benevolent Association warns that too many officers and their higher-ups are leaving the force in droves.
Edwards and Minch represent the effort to give the new cops top-notch veteran leadership.
Both men noted that they couldn’t have climbed the ranks alone.
“I have to mention my wife, who is my rock, my support,” Edwards said. “None of this would happen without her. These assignments require a lot of long hours and missed events, and she really has to shoulder that, and she does a great job supporting my career.
“She’s been with me since the start of my like, supervisory roles, and, you know the, last 13 years, she’s been my rock,” he said. “So, it starts with her.”
