Mamdani Won’t Replace NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch

NYC Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has confirmed that she will remain at the helm of the NYPD when Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani enters office in January.

In a development watched closely across New York City, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has confirmed that she will remain at the helm of the NYPD when Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani enters office in January.

The announcement ends months of uncertainty surrounding whether the longtime city official would agree to work under the incoming mayor, whose political views differ sharply from much of the department’s leadership.

Commissioner Tisch shared that she is ready to continue guiding the department through a period of declining major crime, noting that she and Mamdani have held several discussions in recent weeks.

“I am prepared to serve with honor as his Police Commissioner,” she said. “We share a commitment to reducing crime, strengthening safety in our neighborhoods, fighting corruption, and supporting the men and women of the NYPD.”

Mamdani, who first indicated during the primary that he intended to ask Tisch to stay on, only met with her formally after the general election. His outreach reassured many civic and business leaders who were uneasy about his earlier positions on policing, including previous criticism of the department and past support for reducing its budget—views he moderated during the campaign.

Tisch, known for her demanding administrative style from her years overseeing major city agencies, has built a reputation for pushing reform within the city’s complex bureaucratic systems. She has also played a central role in statewide security planning efforts, including coordination with state officials in preparation for potential federal actions.

Following the announcement, outgoing Mayor Eric Adams released the following statement:

“When I ran for office, I made public safety and reducing crime my North Star because public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity. Coming into office, crime was out of control and shootings were skyrocketing. In the first weeks and months of our administration, we zeroed in on these crimes by announcing our ‘Blueprint to End Gun Violence’ and ‘Blueprint for Community Safety,’ launching our Neighborhood Safety Teams, and forming a Gun Violence Prevention Task Force to go after illegal guns and bring down the number of shootings across our city — and it worked.

“Today, because of the policies we put in place nearly four years ago and the tireless efforts of the brave men and women of the NYPD, we are in our eighth straight quarter of declining crime across the city and we have removed more than 24,000 illegal guns from our streets. Commissioner Tisch, like her predecessors before her, has continued that stellar work and is implementing the policies and initiatives the Adams administration has pushed for four years. She was a star at the Sanitation Department and has done incredible work at the NYPD. 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. 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.”

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