Jessica Tisch Will Remain Police Commissioner Under Mamdani

Commissioner Tisch, the current head of the New York Police Department, said she had agreed to serve in Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s administration.

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, said on Wednesday that Jessica Tisch had agreed to stay on as police commissioner, forging an unlikely and high-stakes partnership.

The announcement came after weeks of speculation over whether Commissioner Tisch would agree to stay after Mr. Mamdani said he wanted to retain her. The two leaders have many differences on policing, but her appointment could provide continuity as the Police Department faces pressing challenges.

“He’s asked me to serve as police commissioner in his administration, and after several conversations with him, I have agreed,” Commissioner Tisch said in an email sent to officers on Wednesday morning. “Leading this department is the greatest privilege of my life, and I am proud to continue doing it.”

Mr. Mamdani praised Commissioner Tisch for continuing to bring down crime and “cracking down on corruption” inside the department. He said in an interview that he had spoken to her about the importance of creating a Department of Community Safety that would divert some 911 calls to mental health teams in the hopes of allowing police officers to focus on violent crimes.

“We share a commitment to delivering safety and justice in tandem and a recognition of the fact that we are currently asking police officers to do far more than simply police,” he said.

The relationship between the mayor-elect and the leader he has chosen to oversee America’s largest police department will be closely watched once Mr. Mamdani takes office on Jan. 1. He is a democratic socialist who once called for defunding the police. She is a data-centric billionaire heiress who has sharply criticized laws to relax bail.

Mr. Mamdani visited a police memorial in Lower Manhattan with Commissioner Tisch on Wednesday and said he appreciated speaking with rank-and-file officers and “understanding the legacy of so many of the officers whose names are on the wall.”

Commissioner Tisch addressed their differences in her email to officers, but said she believed they could work together.

“Do the mayor-elect and I agree on everything? No, we don’t,” she said. “But in speaking with him, it’s clear that we share broad and crucial priorities: the importance of public safety, the need to continue driving down crime and the need to maintain stability and order across the department.”

Commissioner Tisch is well liked by Democratic leaders and the business community, though some of Mr. Mamdani’s progressive supporters have criticized her. Letitia James, the state attorney general, and Gov. Kathy Hochul both urged Mr. Mamdani to keep her.

On Wednesday, several Republicans commended Mr. Mamdani’s decision. Representative Nicole Malliotakis, from Staten Island, said that the commissioner had “done a good job and she will be a steady hand” and “hopefully he’ll listen!”

The New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement that while it had appreciated Commissioner Tisch’s refusal to cooperate with President Trump’s deportation program, it would not stop scrutinizing her department, and to work for accountability and fairness.

“The N.Y.C.L.U. will continue to monitor, challenge and hold the N.Y.P.D. and the commissioner accountable to New Yorkers,” the group said.

Commissioner Tisch, 44, began her career in public service at the Police Department in 2008 and spent a dozen years there. Mayor Eric Adams named her as sanitation commissioner in 2022, and she oversaw the city’s effort to make the streets cleaner by putting trash bags into bins instead of on the curb — an effort that Mr. Mamdani has said he will continue.

She is part of the prominent Tisch family, whose business concerns started with Loews Hotels and now include insurance and the New York Giants football team. Several of her family members donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a super PAC that opposed Mr. Mamdani during the mayoral election.

Mr. Mamdani, 34, a state assemblyman, has walked a delicate line in his relations with the Police Department. He apologized to officers during the campaign for his sharp criticism of them amid protests over the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and has been working to build bridges since.

Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, said on Wednesday that he was pleased with Mr. Mamdani’s decision. “Commissioner Tisch understands all of the many challenges police officers face on the streets and has been working productively with us to address them,” he said.

But the Justice Committee, which works with families in New York City whose relatives have been killed by police officers, faulted Mr. Mamdani for retaining a commissioner who had helped create a vast surveillance system and refused to fire a lieutenant who fatally shot a man, even after an administrative judge recommended his termination.

Mr. Mamdani’s decision was a “rebuff of his promises to New Yorkers and a disturbing endorsement of N.Y.P.D.’s ongoing violence and corruption,” said Loyda Colón, the committee’s executive director.

Mr. Mamdani and Commissioner Tisch have many differences over policing. He supports the Raise the Age law, passed in 2020 to restrict the prosecution of teenagers as adults, and measures that ended bail for most misdemeanors and lower-level felony cases. Commissioner Tisch has opposed these efforts.

Mr. Mamdani is also a critic of Israel and would be the city’s first Muslim mayor. Commissioner Tisch is Jewish and a member of the Central Synagogue in Manhattan, where Rabbi Angela Buchdahl recently criticized Mr. Mamdani for making what she characterized as antisemitic comments.

Eric S. Goldstein, the leader of the UJA-Federation of New York, a major Jewish organization, said that he was grateful that Commissioner Tisch had agreed to stay.

“Amid escalating antisemitism, our community is reassured by her strong leadership,” he said.

Commissioner Tisch has supported Mr. Adams’s efforts to hire 5,000 more officers. Mr. Mamdani wants to keep the police head count at its current level and to restrain the overtime budget and a unit known as the Strategic Response Group that handles protests.

One of the most contentious issues could be how and whether to fire police officers accused of misconduct. Mr. Mamdani has said that he wants to strengthen the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the independent agency that investigates misconduct complaints and is often at odds with the police unions. He has said he would allow it to impose discipline rather than just recommend it.

Jonathan Darche, executive director of the board, said Commissioner Tisch held “the toughest job in law enforcement.”

“I do not envy the choices she has to make every day,” Mr. Darche said. “I certainly don’t agree with all of them. But I respect her.”

William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

Related Content