New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has accepted Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's offer to remain New York City's top cop under his administration. — a move that comes despite differences in views on public safety.
In an email Wednesday to NYPD officers in which she announced she would remain as commissioner, Tisch hinted at those political differences. But she wrote that she ultimately agreed to stay in her post after “several conversations” with Mamdani, a democratic socialist who will be sworn in as mayor on Jan. 1.
“Do the mayor-elect and I agree on everything? No, we don't. But speaking with him, it is clear that we share broad and important priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue to reduce crime, and the need to maintain stability and order throughout the department,” she wrote to officers in an email, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily News. “We also agree that you deserve the respect and support of the city.”
She wrote that she appreciated that Mamdani “wants a team with diverse perspectives—a team where ideas and policies are discussed in a substantive manner.”
“In these discussions, you can rest assured that I will be a strong advocate for you and this department. You know how I operate: I don't mince words,” she said in the message. “When I say something, I mean it. And that won't change.”
Mamdani has promised to keep NYPD staffing levels the same, eliminate the department's controversial Strategic Response Team and get rid of the gang database – all proposals Tisch has publicly expressed skepticism.
Additionally, Mamdani said that as mayor he would seek to create the Department of Public Safety, a $1 billion agency that would take over some of the duties currently performed by police officers, such as mental health calls. Tish didn't say what she thought of the idea.
Years before launching his campaign for mayor, Mamdani posted messages on social media in 2020 calling for the need to “defund” and “dismantle” the NYPD. In one particularly incendiary post from 2020, Mamdani called the NYPD “anti-queer,” “racist,” and “a danger to public safety.”
Since launching his mayoral bid, Mamdani has apologized for the remarks and vowed to keep NYPD funding levels the same. However, some of Mamdani's critics have seized on his past rhetoric about police.
Tisch's decision to remain in the position comes less than a year after she was sworn in as the city's 48th police commissioner and amid widespread speculation about she remained as police commissioner under Mamdani.
Mamdani has repeatedly said, both during the campaign and since his election on November 4, that he wants Tisch to remain in office.
In an interview with WABC Eyewitness News on Sunday, Mamdani said: he talked to Tish about her remaining as police commissioner “just last week” but did not say whether she accepted his offer.
Tisch, 44, has been praised for leading the NYPD as the city sees a sharp decline in crime and least number of shots since the era of CompStat (computer statistics-based policing) began in 1994.
Her precision policing model of sending officers to the city's most violent neighborhoods has “resulted in record-low shootings and fatalities over the past nine months, and the safest neighborhood in our metro's history,” she said in October. “This is not a coincidence—it is the result of an unprecedented, data-driven deployment of thousands of officers to the areas where they are needed most.”
table what fourth police commissioner chosen by Mayor Adams since taking office four years ago. Adams appointed her sanitation commissioner early in his term and promoted her to police commissioner last November.
Tisch replaced Thomas Donlon, who was involved in a high-profile case, as interim NYPD Commissioner. turmoil with the first deputy commissioner at last year's New York City Marathon, but has otherwise kept a low profile since his oath of office last September. Donlon's predecessor, Edward Caban, resigned September 12, 2024, just over a week after the feds seized electronics from Caban and four other senior Adams administration officials in a coordinated early morning operation as part of a sweeping federal corruption investigation.
Adams' first police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, the first female top cop in the city's history, resigned in June 2023, and police sources said she was tired of City Hall interference.
When Tisch took the job, she was not new to the nation's largest police force—she had previously worked as a civilian member of the NYPD, first as a counterterrorism analyst and then as deputy commissioner for information technology.
Earlier this month, Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker announced his resignation as fire chief.
