Jessica Tisch remaining in place as NYPD’s top cop is a relief — but it may be brief

The post-election question on everyone’s lips has finally been answered: NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch will remain in her role when Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes office Jan. 1.

Tisch’s reappointment is a relief for the millions of New Yorkers concerned that Mamdani has not shed his old “defund the police” ideas.

On her watch, crime has come down for the first time in years.

But Tisch’s acceptance of the job is the beginning, not the end, of her potential conflicts with Mamdani.

The mayor-elect and the commissioner will doubtless soon clash on myriad issues — and Tisch may not be long for the post after all.

The first thing to recognize about Tisch’s decision is that it confirms what we already knew: She’s a consummate civil servant, dedicated first and foremost to the good of her city.

Her career is a testimony to that fact: Despite coming from wealth, she worked her way up through the NYPD ranks.

She then took the unglamorous job of Mayor Eric Adams’ sanitation commissioner.

In that role, she managed to get New Yorkers to start putting their trash in bins — something the city has struggled with for decades.

As NYPD commissioner, she has been a stalwart defender of her officers, and of the crime reduction strategies that have proven over and over again to keep New York safe.

She also brought integrity and character to an administration that seemed otherwise to go from scandal to scandal.

Read in this light, her choice to stay on at NYPD makes perfect sense.

It’s an extension of her commitment to serving the city, even when it means working with people she disagrees with.

Unfortunately, one of those people is the soon-to-be mayor.

And there will be lots of opportunities for the two to clash.

Mamdani wants to get rid of the city’s gang database and the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group — both tools that are central to the targeted, focused approach to policing that has been a hallmark of Tisch’s tenure.

Mamdani has said he won’t try to increase the NYPD’s sworn headcount.

With the force now losing 300 officers a month, that means almost certain attrition — putting Tisch as commissioner on a worse footing, with fewer officers to deploy.

Mamdani wants to move some policing functions under his new Department of Community Safety.

Even if most of those functions are minor, it will mean another voice pushing Mamdani on public safety, potentially diluting the commissioner’s sway.

And conflicts not yet foreseen are almost inevitable.

Imagine, for example, if an NYPD officer kills a civilian in a contestable officer-involved shooting.

Will Tisch and Mamdani see eye-to-eye on such a situation — or will they take opposite sides at an emotionally fraught moment?  

In short: While Tisch may have signed on, that doesn’t mean Mamdani sees the world her way.

And in the first few months of his administration, there will be many opportunities  for us to see if they’re on the same page, or if they’ll be repeatedly butting heads.

Of course, it’s possible for a progressive mayor to work with a tough-on-crime commissioner — Bill de Blasio famously brought Bill Bratton back during his mayoralty.

But Mamdani’s asks of the NYPD are more extreme than de Blasio’s were.

And de Blasio’s tenure was infamously marred by poor relations with the NYPD, embodied by the hundreds of officers who turned their backs on the mayor as he spoke at the funerals of slain officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.

More concerning to those of us who support Tisch’s way of doing things is the possibility that her appointment is temporary.

The announcement is part of Mamdani’s campaign to appear more moderate than his radical history implies.

But a clash between the mayor and the commissioner could result in Tisch’s resignation — or in Mamdani’s firing her.

That would then give him carte blanche to say, “I tried!” and appoint someone closer to his own ideological predilections.

In other words, while New Yorkers should be glad that Tisch is in the room with their incoming mayor, they shouldn’t take Wednesday’s announcement as a definitive sign that Mamdani has changed his spots.

It’s one thing to do what dozens of city leaders have urged and keep Tisch on.

It’s another thing entirely to actually listen to her.

Still, if Tisch does have to walk, it may be to her long-term advantage.

She can prove her civil-servant bona fides yet again, but avoid the mess a Mamdani administration will almost certainly bring.

Charles Fain Lehman is a Manhattan Institute fellow and senior editor of City Journal.