M. J. Codd, Once Led N.Y. Police

Michael J. Codd, a career police officer who became the New York police commissioner forced to lay off more than 6,000 fellow officers and freeze salaries for the rest of the department during New York’s fiscal crisis of the late 1970s, died Thursday of an apparent heart attack. He was 69.

Codd joined the police force in 1941. As a lower commander in 1962, he initiated the police decoy team. Codd took command of the Tactical Patrol Force in 1964 and was promoted to chief inspector in 1970. He was named commissioner by Mayor Abraham D. Beame in 1974 and was in charge of the department when the city was paralyzed by a 24-hour power blackout in the summer of 1977 and officers rounded up about 3,000 rioters and looters.

He resigned in December, 1977, to allow Mayor Ed Koch to name his own commissioner.