NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has agreed to stay at the helm of the nation’s largest police department for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s incoming administration, she announced in an internal memo to staff Wednesday.
It comes after weeks of speculation over whether Tisch would accept Mamdani’s offer, which he’s made public for several weeks. She acknowledged their differences in some viewpoints on policing in her memo.
“Now, do the Mayor-elect and I agree on everything? No, we don’t,” she wrote. “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.”
“We also agree that you deserve the city’s respect and support,” her note continued. “Based on these conversations, I am confident that I can continue to lead this department honorably going forward.”
She and Mamdani are expected to advance a coordinated approach to public safety that remains focused on serious and violent crime, while strengthening the city’s response to issues like homelessness and mental health. Tisch acknowledged her appointment in an internal memo to the NYPD. News 4 obtained it.
Mamdani’s team points to a historic drop in crime under Tisch’s leadership, including the fewest shooting incidents and victims ever reported in the first 10 months of the year.
Mamdani commended Tisch’s commitment to rooting out corruption in the NYPD’s highest levels and leading a department-wide focus on transparency and accountability. He said he looks forward to working with her.
Tisch also highlighted the reduction in crime stats this year.
In it, she acknowledges there are differences in viewpoints between her and Mamdani when it comes to policing, but touted their common ground when it comes to prioritizing public safety and respectful support.
She continued, “I appreciate that the mayor-elect wants a team with different points of view – a team where ideas and policies are debated on their merits.”
Tisch, an 18-year public service veteran, was appointed to lead the department last November as both current Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s police force were reeling from overlapping scandals.
In September, federal authorities seized phones from Adams and several high-level appointees, including the police commissioner, Edward Caban, who soon resigned. Agents then searched the home of his interim replacement, Thomas Donlon, just a week after he took over.
In her first weeks as commissioner, Tisch reassigned several top officials, including some seen as allies to the mayor. The department’s top uniformed official, a longtime friend of Adams, resigned in December amid harassment allegations.
Her tenure has coincided with a drop in shootings and several categories of major crime, earning praise from the business community and some police reform groups.
At a debate weeks before the election, Mamdani announced he planned to ask Tisch to stay on as police commissioner. Tisch had declined to discuss the offer both before and immediately after Mamdani’s victory, saying she was focused on leading the department under Adams.
Neither has discussed how they plan to reconcile their political differences. Tisch has fiercely criticized changes to the state’s bail laws, which Mamdani supports. And while the mayor-elect has previously called for defunding the police, Tisch has advocated for expanding their ranks.
Mamdani has since walked back his comments calling to slash department funding and has said he would keep the headcount at its current number.
Since winning the election, Mamdani has moved to surround himself with a cast of seasoned officials as he prepares to enter City Hall under some concern that his limited public experience could create headaches once he assumes control of America’s biggest city.
He has tapped a veteran budget official with deep experience in state and city government to be his first deputy mayor, and has named a team that includes two former deputy mayors to help guide his transition into City Hall.
Tisch, a Harvard-educated scion of a wealthy New York family, previously led the city’s sanitation department, becoming TikTok famous for declaring “The rats don’t run the city, we do” in 2022.
Her first job in city government was in the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism bureau. She has helped shape post-9/11 security infrastructure in the city and, as deputy commissioner for information technology, spearheaded use of body-worn cameras and smartphones.
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