{"id":45768,"date":"2025-11-20T06:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45768\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T06:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:43:13","slug":"jessica-tisch-staying-as-nypds-top-cop-a-relief-but-it-may-be-brief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45768\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Tisch staying as NYPD’s top cop a relief \u2014 but it may be brief"},"content":{"rendered":"

The post-election question on everyone\u2019s lips has finally been answered: NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch will remain in her role<\/a> when Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes office Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

Tisch\u2019s reappointment is a relief for the millions of New Yorkers concerned that Mamdani has not shed his old \u201cdefund the police\u201d<\/a> ideas.<\/p>\n

On her watch, crime has come down for the first time in years.<\/p>\n

But Tisch\u2019s acceptance of the job is the beginning, not the end, of her potential conflicts with Mamdani.<\/p>\n

The mayor-elect and the commissioner will doubtless soon clash on myriad issues \u2014 and Tisch may not be long for the post after all.<\/p>\n

The first thing to recognize about Tisch\u2019s decision is that it confirms what we already knew: She\u2019s a consummate civil servant, dedicated first and foremost to the good of her city.<\/p>\n

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

She then took the unglamorous job of Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 sanitation commissioner.<\/p>\n

In that role, she managed to get New Yorkers to start putting their trash in bins<\/a> \u2014 something the city has struggled with for decades.<\/p>\n

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

She also brought integrity and character to an administration that seemed otherwise to go from scandal to scandal.<\/p>\n

Read in this light, her choice to stay on at NYPD makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an extension of her commitment to serving the city, even when it means working with people she disagrees with.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, one of those people is the soon-to-be mayor.<\/p>\n

And there will be lots of opportunities for the two to clash.<\/p>\n

Mamdani wants to get rid of the city\u2019s gang database<\/a> and the NYPD\u2019s Strategic Response Group <\/a>\u2014 both tools that are central to the targeted, focused approach to policing that has been a hallmark of Tisch\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has said he won\u2019t try to increase the NYPD\u2019s sworn headcount. <\/p>\n

With the force now losing 300 officers a month<\/a>, that means almost certain attrition \u2014 putting Tisch as commissioner on a worse footing, with fewer officers to deploy.<\/p>\n

Mamdani wants to move some policing functions under his new Department of Community Safety<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even if most of those functions are minor, it will mean another voice pushing Mamdani on public safety, potentially diluting the commissioner\u2019s sway.<\/p>\n

And conflicts not yet foreseen are almost inevitable.<\/p>\n

Imagine, for example, if an NYPD officer kills a civilian in a contestable officer-involved shooting.<\/p>\n

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Will Tisch and Mamdani see eye-to-eye on such a situation \u2014 or will they take opposite sides at an emotionally fraught moment? \u00a0<\/p>\n

In short: While Tisch may have signed on, that doesn\u2019t mean Mamdani sees the world her way.<\/p>\n

And in the first few months of his administration, there will be many opportunities \u00a0for us to see if they\u2019re on the same page, or if they\u2019ll be repeatedly butting heads.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s possible for a progressive mayor to work with a tough-on-crime commissioner \u2014 Bill de Blasio famously brought Bill Bratton back during his mayoralty.<\/p>\n

But Mamdani\u2019s asks of the NYPD are more extreme than de Blasio\u2019s were.<\/p>\n

And de Blasio\u2019s tenure was infamously marred by poor relations with the NYPD, embodied by the hundreds of officers who turned their backs on the mayor<\/a> as he spoke at the funerals of slain officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.<\/p>\n

More concerning to those of us who support Tisch\u2019s way of doing things is the possibility that her appointment is temporary.<\/p>\n

The announcement is part of Mamdani\u2019s campaign to appear more moderate than his radical history implies.<\/p>\n

But a clash between the mayor and the commissioner could result in Tisch\u2019s resignation \u2014 or in Mamdani\u2019s firing her.<\/p>\n

That would then give him carte blanche to say, \u201cI tried!\u201d and appoint someone closer to his own ideological predilections.<\/p>\n

In other words, while New Yorkers should be glad that Tisch is in the room with their incoming mayor, they shouldn\u2019t take Wednesday\u2019s announcement as a definitive sign that Mamdani has changed his spots.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to do what dozens of city leaders have urged and keep Tisch on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another thing entirely to actually listen to her.<\/p>\n

Still, if Tisch does have to walk, it may be to her long-term advantage.<\/p>\n

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

Charles Fain Lehman is a Manhattan Institute fellow and senior editor of City Journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The post-election question on everyone\u2019s lips has finally been answered: NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch will remain in her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[303,5302,9,24,11,10,103,299,104,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-45768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-jessica-tisch","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-nypd","15":"tag-opinion","16":"tag-police","17":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}