Tisch to stay on as NYPD boss under Mamdani
/
New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch walk to the New York City Police Memorial after announcing she will stay on as the city’s top cop. AP photo by Richard Drew
By Ryan Schwach
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has agreed to stay on as the city’s top cop when Zohran Mamdani takes office as mayor in January, honoring the mayor-elect’s wish that the NYPD boss remain in the role as a new administration comes into City Hall.
Tisch, who became Mayor Eric Adams’ fourth commissioner nearly one year ago to the day, said she will continue in the role weeks after Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani offered her the job.
Mamdani’s decision to keep Tisch, who has presided over a period of low crime in the city and has been credited with cleaning up corruption at the top of the department, has been a source of debate.
Many thought that Tisch would lend legitimacy to the upstart socialist’s public safety aims. Others argued keeping her would dilute his ability to accomplish those same progressive goals.
“I look forward to working with Commissioner Jessica Tisch to deliver genuine public safety in New York City,” Mamdani said in a statement on Wednesday. “I have admired her work cracking down on corruption in the upper echelons of the police department, driving down crime in New York City, and standing up for New Yorkers in the face of authoritarianism.”
“Together, we will deliver a city where rank-and-file police officers and the communities they serve alike are safe, represented, and proud to call New York their home,” he added.
Tisch’s decision to stay came after several meetings with the mayor-elect, who she has several policy disagreements with.
“I’ve spoken to Mayor-elect Mamdani several times, and I’m ready to serve with honor as his Police Commissioner,” she said. “That’s because he and I share many of the same public safety goals for New York City: lowering crime, making communities safer, rooting out corruption, and giving our officers the tools, support, and resources they need to carry out their noble work.”
The two made their first public appearance together on Wednesday morning at the NYPD Memorial in Manhattan, where officers lost in the line of duty were honored.
“To me, it is very meaningful that he asked to come here as our first public venture,” Tisch told reporters alongside Mamdani.
Tisch avoided questions on her differences with Mamdani on policy.
Also speaking with reporters, Mamdani reiterated his plans for a new Department of Community Safety to address mental health incidents in the city, and mostly obfuscated on questions about where he and Tisch might be at odds.
“The commissioner and I share a belief in the fact that in order for police officers to be able to do their jobs, we also need to create a Department of Community Safety that will be tasked with those responsibilities,” he said. “It's time to make sure police officers can do policing, and that we have a Department of Community Safety that can take on these other issues.”
Whether or not Mamdani would, or should, keep Tisch has been a subject of debate across the political spectrum dating back to the primary.
More moderate Democrats, including Governor Kathy Hochul, pushed for Mamdani to keep Tisch to assuage worries about his more radical polices and old statements about the NYPD and defunding the police.
“Tisch has been a steadfast partner in driving crime down to historic lows and improving public safety across the city,” Hochul said Wednesday. “I’m glad she’ll be continuing that work under the mayor-elect.”
However, some criminal justice advocates and progressives are wary of Tisch and that she may undermine Mamdani’s hopes of reform. They also worry the move is proof Mamdani won’t follow through on his more progressive ideals.
“After running a historic, people-powered campaign for a more livable New York City, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s appointment of Jessica Tisch as Police Commissioner is a rebuff of his promises to New Yorkers and a disturbing endorsement of NYPD’s ongoing violence and corruption,” said Loyda Colón, executive director of the Justice Committee. “Within moments of her acceptance of the position, Tisch has already indicated that she will split from Mamdani, calling into question his ability to deliver the bold public safety promises his supporters voted for and New Yorkers need.”
Tisch is a member of a wealthy New York family who owns a large portion of the Loews conglomerate. She has been a longtime public servant.
She previously served in other roles in the NYPD, including deputy commissioner for information technology, and then as the commissioner of New York City Office of Technology and Innovation and then of Sanitation under the Adams administration.
She was Adams’ fourth police commissioner , following Keechant Sewell, who now leads security at Citi Field, Edward Caban, who resigned after he became embroiled in a federal investigation, and Thomas Donlon, who was interim PC and is now suing the Adams administration and the NYPD.
In a statement, Adams applauded his current top cop.
“In choosing her to stay on as police commissioner, Mayor-elect Mamdani is recognizing our public-safety efforts were right and that they will continue into the future,” he said. “We all want a safer city, and keeping Commissioner Tisch in place and supporting our police officers every day with the policies we have implemented, is exactly how we do that.”
